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One Laptop per Child: Is Criticism Welcome?

Untouchable? OLPC, the Church, and the Red Cross
Untouchable? OLPC, the Church, and the Red Cross
News of a tentative agreement between Libya and One Laptop per Child made headlines earlier this week. The 2B1 Children’s Machine is designed to be a low-cost, low-power laptop, targeted at developing nations. While agreements with Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria and Thailand have also been reached, India rejected participation in July. Economist Atanu Dey writes about his skepticism of OLPC and the Indian government’s reasoning in his blog.
The OLPC project has received a lot of criticism, from Bill Gates to open source supporters. At OLPC News, the positions in the open source debate are discussed in Is OLPC Morally Bankrupt? Debate on the project does not seem to be welcome from OLPC hawker Negroponte, who was quoted as saying:
“I don’t respond to such criticism. Because criticising this project is like criticising the church, or the Red Cross.”
As more governments consider the project and reported implementation estimates have doubled in price, hopefully debate will stay open on the Internet and in the media. While Negroponte’s anecdotes of Cambodian children speaking their first word in English, “Google,” are heartwarming, million dollar investments warrant more of a critical approach.

14 October 2006 | 10.35am (CEST) | posted by Marie | |
TAGS Economic Development & Globalization | Ethical Values & Responsibility | Children & Youth Issues | Education | Science & Technology

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2 Responses to “One Laptop per Child: Is Criticism Welcome?”

  1. DK Says:
    October 14th, 2006 at 4:07 pm

    Good catch - posted a similar piece over at my venture MediaSnackers:

    http://mediasnackers.com/report/2006/October/11/179/

    Interesting quote from the OLPC captain there which further highlights my question of not whether we ‘can’ do this but more whether we ’should’…

    DK

  2. wayan Says:
    October 15th, 2006 at 3:13 pm

    And now you know why we started OLPC News - Negroponte’s arrogance is so grandiose as to demand investigation, especially when his very laptop design will encourage criticism as a method of learning: http://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/negroponte_to_critic.html