Aid organization accuses MIT, Negroponte of exploiting poor with OLPC

Stan Beer
Friday, 19 January 2007 06:37

Your IT - Home IT

"As a normal commercial company (actually OLPC is not for profit) OLPC is heavily marketing its product's advantages without giving enough information about the weaknesses and pitfalls of the new technology. Attention is being directed away from the gaping deficiencies and the project's high risk and OLPC is being marketed as a "100 dollar laptop", when it really costs over US$200.- plus other substantial investment costs."

In addition, FAIR claims that OLPC is trying to create a market for its laptop that doesn't exist and that poor countries are in danger of being misled into sacrificing funds that could be better used elsewhere.

"The worst part of OLPC's marketing is that it is talking about an incorrect market group, twice what actually exists. OLPC says its target group is aged 6-18 years, when in reality it is 6-12. Negroponte himself has admitted that OLPC today is a toy and as it doesn't offer the simplest kind of spreadsheet at the expense of game buttons etc. it can hardly cover the needs of the 12-18 age group. The reason for this incorrect, expanded target group is that Negroponte has missed the market," states FAIR.

"Children in the 6-12 age group don't need PC access in the way older children and young people do and therefore no such market exists today. Negroponte is trying to create a new market for OLPC. We fear that the authorities in many poor countries will be misled into believing that investing in OLPC could cover the ICT needs of the 12-18 age group. This could be fatal for a country which would then be unable for many years to make new investments in ICT for secondary schools, in which PC labs are needed to prepare students for modern working life or further education."

According to FAIR, there is already a much cheaper way than OLPC to ensure that poor countries have access to all the computing hardware that they need for education purposes.

"Every year in the west we destroy tens of millions of PCs which are far better than OLPC and which would cost not much more than a tenth of OLPC to put to use in developing countries," FAIR states.

"This is established technology which can run the latest software and get the recipients up to western levels of IT technology without delays. In the present circumstances this is a far better alternative. For western organisations such as MIT, OLPC and their sub-contractors to benefit by transferring expensive and risky technology to the world's poorest countries, without any documented need for it, looks like exploitation to those of us who are really committed to global aid work."

An email has been sent to the press office of OLPC inviting the organization to respond to FAIR's comments.