TEDTalk Tuesday: One Laptop Per Child

[Occulus]

Today's TEDTALKTUESDAY covers efforts in developing nations all over the world to get a laptop computer in the hands of every child. This short video talks about the progress of these efforts, including an inspiring story of a child educating her mother via this program.

Enjoy!

NICHOLASNEGROPONTE

Talk Title: Bringing One Laptop per Child to Colombia: TED in the Field (video runtime: 6:31)



Nicholas Negroponte

Wiki bio

About this talk

TED follows Nicholas Negroponte to Colombia as he delivers laptops inside territory once controlled by guerrillas. His partner? Colombia's Defense Department, who see One Laptop per Child as an investment in the region. (And you too can get involved.)

[bigbrother05]

1. Looking at this on my very own G1G1

Took advantage last year of OLPC's Give 1 - Get 1 promotion. For $400 you pay to send a laptop to a child in a developing country and you get your own version of the little green and white machines. Not the most feature rich machine, but has decent battery life and isn't half bad for WiFi surfing. Pretty bare bones, but fine for a secondary PC and even DU posting feels exciting when you can help the world move forward.

[Occulus]

2. Thank you for helping this effort

OLPC is one of those good programs that has the capability of returning far, far more in the future than it costs today.

Good on you!

[SoCalDem]

3. I did this in Dec 07

it's a great plan.. and you get a $200 deduction too..

[ogneopasno]

4. I'm still not convinced about the efficacy of this program.

[JackRiddler]

5. techno fetishism - skewing developmental priorities through "aid"

There is no indication that having a laptop as a child will result in a better education by the time one's an adult. Not without development of the child's community in every other sense. How about clean water and good food for every child? A living human teacher in a classroom with no more than 20 other children in a lesson?

His partner is... the Colombian military?

He's giving this kind of PR to a notorious death squad army?

I wanted to avoid pointing to the family association, but it's hard not to think of how his brother John Negroponte as US ambassador played sponsor to the Honduran-based Contra killers in the 1980s, and then again the death squads of the Iraqi Interior Ministry in the 2000s.