Since mobile phones seem to be a huge success in Malawi, the “way in” is perhaps to ensure that these are cheap and very low power so that small cheap solar panels and hand winders keep them going.

Children are very adept at acquiring skills so perhaps a good one for them would be learning to speak in a way in which speech recognition is successful. We then have the possibility of free access to a verbal internet with some information and learning exercises being fully interactive by speech, some using the “if you want this press 1″ approach and some just taking web pages and putting the text through a speech generator.

An obvious highly useful add-on to the phone would be a “hands free” extension so that the screen and keypad are easily accessible while you are listening, talking and using the keypad.

In this light MMS text messages are just emails by phone. Slow and tedious but cheap and functional.

It should be easy enough to limit the functionality of “children’s phones” so they cannot easily be taken by adults and used as normal phones and there seems little harm in adults using them as a learning device.

On the back of this it should be possible to introduce i-phone type gadgets allowing better internet access. It is the internet after all that is now the main conduit to knowledge.

Nick B.

The XO has a large trackpad for pen input. It is designed to resist dirt and moisture. A library of books can be stored on a flash drive and shared with everyone. The XO has an optional pull-string power system. And it converts to slate mode, which is easier to use in one’s lap.

No running out of paper. No running out of pencils. No running out of books. No reliance on desks. That’s what OLPC is offering. That’s why “It’s an education project, not a laptop project.”

I have written about the OLPC in the Indian context. Yes, it would be great if we could afford a laptop for every child. But the arithmetic doesn’t work out. We can barely manage one blackboard per school. The problem is not technological — it is the economics of the whole venture.

Do take at look at my take on the OLPC — at http://www.deeshaa.org/2006/07/28/olpc/

I looked at cell phone penetration and mobile banking (m-banking) in Africa for a class I took fall semester. According to stats (that I’m not going to try to dig up right now but aren’t hard to fine), Africa is the fastest growing region in terms of cell phone devices. Many see it as a way to bring banking services to remote areas including things like micro-loans which will help in alleviating poverty. Cell networks tend to be more open too and allow use of used handsets, etc. In researching the material, I began to wonder if Africa won’t move ahead of the developed world eventually in terms of open and innovative cell networks.

As for OLPC, you probably know that both Microsoft and Intel have plans for low-cost PCs and one could certainly argue that Windows under the hood would be a better choice in terms of global compatibility. (My own sentiments lie with Linux and FOSS.) MS and Intel also have a lot of bargaining power and benefit from economics of scale. It wouldn’t take much for them to have a $99 laptop if necessary to grab the market.

Whatever happens, I can only hope that it will also benefit us in the US where many children also lack a computer and access to the Internet.

I am an African and a Malawian in particular who always gets surprised of the syndrome of western solutions to poor countries problems. I think the main problem lies in the blanket classification that all people in developing countries are poor. I think most westerners forget that there are social classes like high-income, middle-income as well as poor people in developing countries as it is the case with developed countries. However, we cannot deny the fact that a LARGE number of people in developing countries struggle to make ends meet on a daily basis and there is need for social and economic justice to uplift them from abject poverty.

In my opinion, I feel that once a person overlooks the fact that there are also social classes in developing countries, it is very easy to conclude that a laptop per child is not necessary in that case. It is easy to falsely conclude that every child in the developing world is malnourished etc and therefore needs food, clean water, clothing etc. What we forget is that there are some kids (not necessarily from rich families) who definitely deserve access to technological advances like a laptop. I for one did all my primary school, secondary school as well as undergraduate training in public schools in Malawi and I could have wished that I could have been exposed to technology like computers at a much earlier age. We have to realize that denying these deserving kids a chance is perpetuating the already existing digital divide with their counterparts in the West.

So, lets give the deserving kids the laptops and for those who are very underpriviledged, lets give them what they need most ie food, shelter, clothing and most importantly education which I believe is a key to human development. To this end, I therefore strongly support Dr Negroponte’s vision.

On another note, I also feel that there are some points which need to be corrected in Martin Luca’s article. Much as I understand that his intention was to drive home the fact that Malawi is one of the least developed countries, I wish to correct the picture that he painted implying that Malawi does not have any mineral resources. Yes, in the past Malawi had not exploited her mineral resources due to the late president Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s belief in an agriculture-based economy. This has now changed and there is a lot of mineral prospecting currently underway in Malawi. Some positive prospects have already been identified and Malawi will soon start mining resources like the uranium (which is in abundance), nickel, manzanite etc (You may google for this). This shall definitely turn around the poor economy. Malawi shall soon have a mineral-based as well as agriculture based economy. Therefore we cannot say that technology advancement can not be a priority in that case. The reader should understand that I am not denying that Malawi is currently poor but rather I am just trying to correct the wrong information conveyed. I think exaggerations sometimes distort facts.