[WSIS CS-Plenary] Laptop and development

[Jean-Louis FULLSACK]

Dear all
Please find hereafter this rather critical opinion on the "wsis-summit-celebrated-machine".
I expressed quite similar criticisms and ideas in the editorial of CSDPTT's last "Lettre d'information mansuelle" published at the beginning of december. I'd have prefered such sounds, or at least some relevant comments, coming from the most concerned CS Caucuses such as Education, Africa, Grassroots, etc ... 
Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2006 
Jean-Louis Fullsack
CSDPTT 

Nortel supports Negroponte`s curious laptop initiative
by Guy Daniels - 16/12/2005 12:16:09

Forward this story to a colleague

Nortel Networks has proudly issued a press release announcing its support for the so-called "$100 laptop" initiative, which was unveiled at November's World Summit on the Information Society. Strangely, Nortel's press advisors say the initiative is aimed at "poor children". This kind of misses the point, the project is not aimed at poor children per se, but at getting ICT into the hands of families in developing nations.

Nortel says that government agencies in Argentina, Nigeria, Thailand, China, Egypt and India are in discussions to distribute the $100 laptops through large-scale pilot programs in each of these countries. The other corporate members of the initiative are AMD, Brightstar, Google, News Corporation and Red Hat. Apple was famous snubbed by the Nicholas Negroponte and his development team at MIT when it offered its operating system for the wind-up bottle-green laptop.

The unveiling of the first laptop at the WSIS press event (which, incidentally, cynical journalists claimed may not have been an independently working model) resulted in a lot of media interest from practically every media outlet except the New Scientist magazine (good for them). In fact, it rather overshadowed other more worthy developments at the Summit.

More worthy? But what could be more worthy than giving a laptop to every child on the planet? Well, unfortunately not everyone agrees that this is the right approach. Firstly, why the focus on a laptop? Wouldn't it be better to continue engaging with the governments of developing nations, and to help them implement broader ICT policies, ones which are "joined up" and will leave a lasting legacy?

Then there's the question of what happens to these laptops once they are distributed. Will they be plugged into non-existent telecoms networks to enable Internet access? Will they be used for word processing and spreadsheet work, playing Minesweeper or Civilisation? Or will the valuable item be quickly sold to buy something more useful, such as food?

Okay, so some extreme views there. But it is a reflection on how ill thought out this initiative really is. Yes, we should commend the industry for wanting to increase ICT development - despite the fact that they benefit indirectly from doing so. But this approach is at the very best doubtful and at the worst harmful to other lower profile initiatives.

Anyway, Nortel's happy. "Nortel has a firm belief in the power of communications technology to enhance the lives of people around the world," said Martha Bejar, president, Caribbean and Latin America and Emerging Markets Solutions, Nortel. "We believe that wireless broadband technology will be the bridge to connect communities that are today disconnected."

If you want to see what the $100-laptop developers have in mind, go visit their website. Revealing and insightful information at: http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20051222/7d37dc4b/attachment.htm