There is a non-profit organisation named One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) steered by MIT Media Lab faculties and many more educationists and technologist with a dream of making laptops affordable to every children across the world for constructionist learning. A noble dream. I read abouit them almost a year ago. They have been supported by several industries like AMD, Brightstar, Google, RedHat, etc has supported them in terms of investment and technology. I was just going through some news and noticed a news regarding it. Intel had joined the the group sometime in 2007 and now it is leaving the group becuase it was conflicitng with their own program of Classmate PC! The news quotes OLPC President Wlater Bender as he mentions about 'half hearted' effort of Intel. I don't know th real story, but if the claims made by Bender ar true then it is really unfortunate to see a technology giant like Intel to do this! May be there are business conflicts, still from a humanitarian point of view, Intel could've never joined the group if it was to make this kind of effort. I don't know; may I'm being sentimental.
Actually the vision of the project is so very positive ... just thinking about it I can dream of a better future. Information can bring revolution, and in a very small quantity many projects have been undertaken to demonstrate the positive effects of computer in general in a child's perspective. I loosely remeber there was an article long ago on a NGO-based project done at Delhi, where the authoroties installed some computer in an open space under shelter in a slum to monitor the effect on the children of the slum. And as far as I rememeber, the children of the slum learned the usage of the computer without any assistance in astonishingly fast pace and their general knowledge and confidence also increased as well. Now if every such child gets a laptop of his/her own ... won't it be a great learning tool? I heard Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India is on its way of making laptops or simputers at $47! That'll be really great. Btw, India is not participating in OLPC as MHRD believes they'll be able to make these cheaper ones very soon.
Actually the vision of the project is so very positive ... just thinking about it I can dream of a better future. Information can bring revolution, and in a very small quantity many projects have been undertaken to demonstrate the positive effects of computer in general in a child's perspective. I loosely remeber there was an article long ago on a NGO-based project done at Delhi, where the authoroties installed some computer in an open space under shelter in a slum to monitor the effect on the children of the slum. And as far as I rememeber, the children of the slum learned the usage of the computer without any assistance in astonishingly fast pace and their general knowledge and confidence also increased as well. Now if every such child gets a laptop of his/her own ... won't it be a great learning tool? I heard Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India is on its way of making laptops or simputers at $47! That'll be really great. Btw, India is not participating in OLPC as MHRD believes they'll be able to make these cheaper ones very soon.
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