An insider’s critique on OLPC gadgetry
One of my readers was kind enough to let me know about a very good article written by Binyavanga Wainaina about the OLPC and other types of outsider-driven development. The article is very funny, contains a fair amount of profanity but I think makes an important point about the OLPC:
The $100 laptop is for the whole brown world. It will change everything. Every aspect of the project is upstanding, straight, honest, earnest, and disciplined. Forward looking, educational, humanitarian.
It will be sold directly to governments. Rwanda has already signed up a perfect launch pad; in Rwanda every Brother and Sister Citizen sweeps the highways once a month. Libya is already on board, too; they will spend a modicum of oil money, adding this crowning achievement of the humanitarian imagination to the gas ovens and refrigerators and little green books the citizenry already gets for free. The command will go out, and smiling millions will laptop away.
I got all out of breath ranting about the OLPC last year so I’m not going to do it again. But I think the Western world’s sanctimonious approach to “developing” the “undeveloped” world is a travesty. Mozambique has been crippled by aid and an entire nation has been convinced that the only way to get ahead is to get plugged into the NGO money-machine. Well, here I go ranting again. Consider reading Wainaina’s challenging article.
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[...] Ranting about One Laptop Per Child Published February 21, 2008 Africa , Development , OLPC , One Laptop Per Child I am not going to rant about the OLPC. Really. I’m not. It’s a dumb idea but I’m not going to tell you that. Instead, I’ll point you in the direction of a Kenyan who says it far better than I ever could. Get the story at lingalinga: An insider’s critique on OLPC gadgetry. [...]
Honestly, I think that now is the time to rant about the OLPC. To hash it out. To think about alternatives. And, perhaps more importantly, to have a serious conversation with everyone interested in those issues. Not “Africans vs. non-Africans.” Not “techno-enthusiasts vs. development agencies.” Everyone, discussing freely.
I don’t claim to know what Africa or the rest of the world needs. But as the OLPC project reaches a new phase, I strongly believe that we should be allowed to discuss its implications whether they’re “good,” neutral, or “bad.”