Friday, July 06, 2007 3:29 PM
by
jtspencer
giving gadgets to underdeveloped countries
Lately, the One Laptop Per Child group has recieved a good deal of attention for their plan to give away two hundred dollar laptops to children in developing and underdeveloped countries. Proponents laude the MIT group who pioneered this, claiming that it will disolve the Digital Divide forever; that children in the poorest countries will become the future entrepeneurs who pull their people out of the grips of poverty. Critics claim that it is a sinister plot to expand free market capitalism.
I'm not sure I believe either group. I believe that children throughout the world need access to technology. In a globalized world, this is a necessity. Personally, I would love the two-hundred dollar laptops for my own classroom. They are sturdy, durable, easy to use and capable of running on a Linux platform with open source programs. My issue is with the methodology of the group.
The method is a throwback to nineteenth century imperialism. In many respects, it is not unlike the missionaries who converted people to an American version of Christianity and then lamented when tribes lost their sense of community, family and devotion to protecting the land. There is something arrogant (even if the motives are good) in sending down laptops from the sky with a message that, "you, too, can be like us." No one seems to be asking, "Is this what is best?" If MIT professors want to introduce laptops to the poor, they need ask some hard questions: What will this do to community? What will happen when an oral culture shifts to an image/digital culture? What will be the environmental impact? What will happen as they grow more commercialized and materialistic?
The truth is that it should have been a partnership, built from the bottom up. Perhaps the answer is to meet the people, talk to them, see if they want technology and how they would choose to use it. Then, work with the people to custom-design the programs, the hardware and the system of distribution. Spend time with the people and ask whether we really need to open Pandora's techno-box, so that, in a few decades, we can have more strip malls and SUVs.