For those who are tracking the progress of OLPC in India, here are few tidbits gleaned from the web: A fairly in-depth description of the OLPC pilot and a recent update on Nick Negroponte’s visit to Mumbai in August.
Here are some interesting photos from the wiki of thier initial pilot in Khairat village, in Raigadh district, Maharashtra. It is on the OLPC wiki and makes for interesting reading.
One room school house at Khairat (from OLPC wiki)
Posted in Education, Information Technology, Politics, Poverty, Rural Education, Schools, Social Ecosystem
Tagged classroom, computers, Digital Bridge Foundation, Education, Goa, India, Information Technology, internet, Johny Joseph, Khairat, Laptop, Maharashtra, Negroponte, OLPC, Reliance, Rural Education, Satish Jha, Schools, Teachers, XO laptops
A couple of related articles in the past months have got me thinking about the trash streams we generate and its adverse impact in the developing world.
The National Geographic in an article “High Tech Trash” estimates that over 70 per cent of high tech trash winds up in landfills creating a toxic time bomb. The EPA estimated that between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of electronic junk was discarded in 2005. The future looks even bleaker as millions of TVs will be rendered inoperable with the switch to digital transmission next year. Already the US discards nearly 25 million TVs and 100 million cell phones every year. Continue reading
Posted in environment, Recycle, Social Ecosystem, sustainability, Waste
Tagged Businessweek, Carnegie Mellon University, computers, electronic waste, energy, environment, ePanacea, materials, National Geographic, Recycle, recycling, Trash, TV, Waste
A BusinessWeek article mentions that the MIT-spawned OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project has finally penetrated India with a tie up with the mega-corporation Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG). This is after several failed attempts by Nicholas Negroponte, godfather of OLPC, to establish a beachhead in India. Previous negative comments from the Indian political establishment about his efforts include:
In 2001 Information Technology Minister Arun Shourie dismissed his [Negroponte’s Media Lab] efforts as “pedagogically suspect” and wanted more accountability.
… in 2006, his project was again rebuffed by India’s then-Education Secretary, Sudeep Banerjee
“Our primary school children need reading and writing habits, not expensive laptops,” says Arun Kumar Rath, India’s Education Secretary.
Posted in Education, Information Technology, Politics, Rural Education, Schools, Social Ecosystem
Tagged Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, Businessweek, classroom, computers, Digital Bridge Foundation, Education, India, Information Technology, internet, Laptop, MIT, Negroponte, OLPC, Reliance, Rural Education, Schools, social entrepreneurship, Teachers, XO
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