Bill Gates mocks MIT 100$ laptop

Many of you must have read this news where ol' Billy Gates seriously *mocked* the MIT 100$ laptop project (better known as one-laptop-per-child, or OLPC project). His main criticism was about the absence of a hard disk, the small screen size, low focus on connectivity, and operator support to help the users. Of course, much of this is also politically motivated because the OLPC does not run Windows! I have written about this previously as well, and my criticisms are largely about the high cost involved in providing a computer to each child, as compared to a shared infrastructure supported by the rural kiosk model.

Excerpts from the mail by Edmund Resor on TIER came as quite an eye-opener on the other things that the OLPC project is trying to do.

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There is an excellent introduction and overview in the Feb. 16th lecture by the president, Walter Bender, to MIT Students. The podcast is on http://www.laptop.org/press.en_US.html .

Some answers to Mr. Gates reported criticisms.

1. Lack of a disk drive: OLPC is also developing a $100 server to which the laptops will have wireless access. With 50 gigabyte drives, these servers will act as e-mail servers, personal data stores, and school libraries.

2. Tiny little screen: the small screens, low price, and 0.6 watt power requirement allow this laptop to function as an e-book reader in low-income countries where the copyrights for text books are owned by the government and freely distributed.

3. The cost of connectivity: OLPC is looking for other groups such as TIERS to succeed with connectivity solutions. The $100 server above is designed to use night time and idle time data capacity, such as the standby bits on GSM networks, to provide good enough connectivity for data updates, chat, e-mail, and night time VoIP. Government regulators can establish special rates for educational institutions. The regulator in Bangladesh had to outlaw free night time calls introduced by two GSM operators because parents complained that their teenagers were distracted from their work. Already, unlimited EDGE access from GrameenPhone costs $13.33 per month today. OLPC is requiring participating governments, who regulate wireless operators, to take responsibility for the provision of connectivity to the schools. Since each government must put up irrevocable letters of credit for $100 million for the first 1 million laptops, each government has a strong incentive to solve the connectivity problem.

4. Cost and availability of applications: Governments are also required to localize and develop applications, along with the open source community. Demonstration boards will be available soon providing 12 months to develop and localize applications before the first production computers are shipped. The use of open source Linux from Red Hat (The OS might have been open Windows 3.1.) will stimulate the development and localization of many applications.

5. Support: Support is also part of the contract signed with the participating governments and their ministries of education. In addition, the support for open source Linux is well established and will increase as school kids take it apart, break it, and then fix these laptops.

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All these justifications are good and go on to show that things are quite well structured. But I would still remain skeptical about the One-Laptop-Per-Child idea, just because it is about providing one laptop for each child.

Anyhow, here is an excellent article on what computers can do for the poor. It talks about how automation, communication, and media can keep a check on corruption; computer skills can help in creating employment opportunities; communication can revolutionize access to important and timely information; and how the population at the bottom of the pyramid can generate funds to make the IT projects self-sustainable in rural areas.