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My friend's wife works in Compton, which is one of the most distraught and lowest income areas in the country. I asked as a technologist what can we do to help her. She said she needs laptops for every child.

Standardized tests are being taken on computers now and many of her kids do not even know the simplest commands -- drag and drop, right click for more options, drag to expand, etc. This is an obvious incremental hinderance on their ability to catch up to the rest of society.

Additionally, they actually have funding for computers, but the district pays the lowest vendor for the most hardware. Makes sense from a non-technical bureaucrat's point of view. More computers means more children can have access. However, these computers break down before the end of the year and they mysteriously disappear after being loaned to the children.

My friend's wife now has to bring in her own computer and use that to teach her children how to use the basics of computers because the system is so broken and because people have a generally naive and ignorant view of what is needed and not needed by the education system, even at home.

I worked at an NGO in Cambodia at about the time they were considering a country-wide roll-out of OLPC. I believe the OLPC organization initially demanded an all-or-nothing implementation, but later agreed to a pilot program run in just Siem Reap. The pilot went poorly and the implementations wasn't extended. Because it was a failure, there weren't PR releases done by any of the parties involved.

From what I've heard, the problems they saw were with things like the cost of electricity consumed when doing multi-unit charging at schools and difficulty in integrating OLPC devices into teacher-driven curriculums.

In Cambodia at the moment, it seems like inexpensive Android devices are starting to deliver on some of the promises of the OLPC program. They're rugged, energy efficient, simple for children to use, and have a large variety of educational apps and material available (though fewer are available in Khmer). A family owns it, so issues like theft and damage are their responsibility. I vacationed in Cambodia last year, and was amazed to see how many smart phones were in common use, even in poorer areas.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the project's goals and methods.

Then enlighten us, what were the goals? Because based on my reading over the years (I've followed the project with some interest, having worked in the academic technology field) the goal, from a very high level, was to provide kids with laptops, which were then supposed to catalyze various other improvements in their lives.

You may be mistaking the details and results for the plan and the movement. http://one.laptop.org/community

OLPC (org and community) works on the scale of deployments. Villages and sometimes entire countries are organized around educational technology access and infrastructure is found or built. Volunteers orgs stand up to help translate content, support and repair laptops in situ, and help the local teachers, students, and parents.

Also, they make/design the laptops. And Sugar Labs makes the Sugar software. Check out the blogs on http://planet.laptop.org/ for more on all of this, including the OLPC news article tat kicked off this HN thread.

I don't have time to go link-hunting at the moment, but I know I have read they had big problems with the infrastructure and community aspect of the plan. This is almost always the case in technology applied to education.

Handing out laptops (or iPads, or whatever) is easy, developing a curriculum that uses them effectively, achieving buy-in from relevant stakeholders, and keeping the hardware updated and in working order are challenges that are orders of magnitude greater, yet they get less attention and funding.

This is why I would be interested in genuine, academically rigorous evaluations of the success of the project using pre-established metrics (not just press releases trumpeting their achievements).

A quick search shows the expected results: there have been studies, most pronounced the project ineffective (or a failure), and there is controversy and politics involved in it all: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=OLPC+study

Real work is hard and I agree with your point that the deployments have struggled with reaching their goals around content and infrastructure. I've tried to re-frame the discussion in terms of the goals, rather than the laptops, but I don't suggest it's all been unicorns and rainbows in the field.

And I didn't go out there, so I'm cautious of criticizing their efforts.

I do believe that success has already been achieved in several countries measured by the goals of donors and supporters of the project (and community), but the studies, and detractors, are looking for different goals.

After all, not every child has a (hackable!?) laptop yet, but millions do that didn't before. :D

Tommy Jordan of Youtube fame started his own approach to helping children in other less developed countries take advantage of today's technology. I think his approach was more practical than putting purpose built technology in the hands of everyone.

http://8minutesoffame.com/pressrelease-1/

http://www.manhattandigest.com/2013/08/20/project-phoenix-ri...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Smmh3D_tXE

"and anything multiple by zero (or something very small) is still zero (or very small)."

Those are people you are so callously and casually equating with zero, and a person's economic status has nothing to do with their value.

I can't help but think of this earlier hacker news story:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-tampon-king...

A person, living in poverty, solved major problem. In this case, he did his work by hand and by phone. Absolutely something where a communications tool like an internet-enabled laptop would have helped.

I think you are misunderstanding. If you give a laptop to a kid that is getting a good standard of education (and nutrition) at home and at school, it will probably have more of an effect than that same laptop would have on a kid with limited access to good education which is the norm among potential recipients.

If a school has 50 pupils in one class, the cost of 50 laptops could instead be used to split the class in two (1 extra teacher) and provide students free breakfast for a year, even at a cost of $100 per laptop. Both of these are proven to have big effects on attendance and achievement. 25 well fed 10 year olds in a class vs 50 pekish 10 year olds is a big difference.

I don't misunderstand.

I would never say give a laptop to someone that doesn't have food. Or spend money on technology over providing enough calories for someone to live and work. I don't think anyone at OLPC says that either. We aren't talking about failed states like the Central African Republic here. Argentina and Brazil were huge proponents and adopters of OLPC. This is not a "technology" or "food" zero sum game.

But the parent comment didn't say "handing a laptop to someone who has no food and shelter is never a great idea". glesica said "handing a laptop to a poor child."

Technology is a force multiplier for curiosity and ingenuity and for problem solving. "poor" people have curiosity, ingenuity, and have problems that need solving. Yes, technology isn't magic that just solves problems, but to say that poor people can't use or benefit from personal technology is just patently wrong.

I don't think he's equating the people themselves with zero, rather the benefit to them. A good example where technology has really helped in Africa are cell phones. So many stories of fishermen being able to call and ask "who needs fish?" and they're able to get to the right markets with better fish.

I didn't see these as having that 'killer app' for the populace where it noticeably makes life better, immediately, for the people they're given to.

Even in the sanitary-pad case above, the man said he was illiterate, IIRC. The computer wouldn't have done much there...

Everything people are saying here against OLPC, such as "give them food and build infrastructure first" equally applies to cell phones. But cell phones clearly are win in Africa and have really helped.

Would we all criticize a one-cell-phone-per-person charitable organization? Would people like glesica rant about how a one-cell-phone-per-person charitable organization is wasting, as he said, "resources that could have been used providing more basic types of development aid that would have created something to multiply in the future"

Technology is not magic, but it does help, even poor people.

>Assuming that there is avaliable internet for your internet connected laptop

>Assuming there is available electricity for said laptop

>Assuming there is clean water, fresh food, good shelter/lighting available so the proprieties lie in developing with said laptop.

Technology is an amazing force for positive change. However, I think, as I believe so does the parent, you get more for your money if you first develop the surrounding infrastructure, then help provide the technology. No one is implying that the people living in these areas of the world are worth nothing. The implication is that the foundation around them is minimizing the potential gains via technology.

I'm about 50-50 in-between you folks.

> Assuming that there is avaliable internet for your internet connected laptop

You don't need internet to have a communication tool. Mesh networks can actually work pretty well. OLPC had mesh networks. And they don't need to eventually reach the internet, either. Being able to send a text message to your neighbor, even 100 yards away, could have been pretty powerful. Connect a few of those together in a mesh, and you might be able to communicate MILES away. I don't actually know if the OLPC was any good at this, but it was built out of pieces that could have enabled it.

> Assuming there is available electricity for said laptop

You don't need electricity for a hand-crank laptop. OLPC had hand-crank power.

The fact that you bring up these factually incorrect arguments makes me think you don't actually know anything about OLPC. It's worth educating yourself, they made some interesting and good choices. They also made, in my opinion, some TERRIBLE choices.

Oh, and you said "lighting." Since the OLPC was hand-crank powered, it was often the brightest light source available to the families that got them.

...and on to your next point...

I think that OLPC computers COULD HAVE HAD instructional videos, like Khan Academy, in how to improve water quality, preserve food, deal with pests and diseases and infections and wounds, reproductive health, building good shelters, identifying cloud patterns. Kind of like a US Army Field Survival Guide. All tailored to the local language and culture.

In that respect, it could have been like air-dropping a Peace Corps volunteer with engineering know-how, into a community.

Sadly, the OLPC project didn't address those problems.

Hi, I worked at OLPC. You might not be aware that OLPC shipped offline Wikipedia snapshots (in an appropriate language) on each laptop, or that people made Khan Academy video packs that were downloadable to a "school server" with enough disk space, or that children who received OLPC laptops helped to translate Khan Academy videos to their own language:

http://blog.printf.net/articles/2013/02/01/children-in-peru-...

http://blog.laptop.org/2011/06/06/khan-academy-videos-and-ol...

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Khan_Academy

So we did work on some of these issues, often successfully e.g. in the case of Wikipedia. We didn't have our small US team make instructional videos, though -- that doesn't seem wise (smacks of colonialism) or sustainable (OLPC laptops went to something like 30 countries).

There are plenty of things we should have done better, though. The mesh network was a failure in most locations, and the "hand crank" power didn't work, though we were able to run laptops off single solar panels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITHNbOrPQyM

A Wikipedia snapshot is great, but it's not a textbook. It's a reference.

If a community was going to get 100 laptops, I was hoping each laptop would get something like 1/100th (or 1/50th, for replication) of the videos. No "school server" necessary. But I guess that idea is dependent on the mesh network...

It sucks that the mesh network and the hand crank didn't work. Did the rip-cord work?

I'm glad the Khan Academy videos were getting translated, that's great.

> our small US team

I wish you'd figured out a way to go big. Something like enlisting the top 10 US universities for Education degrees to get all of their graduating students to each make a 30-minute educational video for OLPC as a senior project. Make it trivial to record videos on the OLPC itself, and trivial to share them with each other...

Never mind me. I'm just an armchair quarterback. Thank you for working on it.

Hey CJB!

Thanks for wading into this olpcnews FUD inspired mess ;) Glad to see you, even to rehash old arguments.

Cheers, adric

I'll presume you're not intentionally misunderstanding...

glesica and I believe that the OLPC didn't do near enough to actually try to TEACH. Multiplying 0 teaching times a force-multiplying computer yields 0 teaching.

> Those are people you are so callously and casually equating with zero, and a person's economic status has nothing to do with their value.

Get over yourself. That was not even remotely what was said or implied.

Being in a situation where you have near-zero utility from a computer is not "being equal to zero".