It began with an idea from Nicholas Negroponte at MIT, back in 2005. The West’s approach to Africa is a little like throwing money over the wall and hoping for the best. But it doesn’t work; and as we accelerate in our technological development, so the gap widens. There are 100 million children out there who have nothing; no school, no education of any sort. Nicholas felt that a solution must be available, given the tremendous resources and minds available at MIT. The key question he posed: how can we help these children leapfrog over much of the legacy technologies that we still rely on here in the West? Hence the idea: let’s develop a 100 dollar laptop for the world’s poorest children. 

 

At the time, no one was interested in developing a cheap laptop. Also, we were interested in areas where there is no market, where there is absolutely nothing. That’s why there was opportunity to launch this type of initiative. 

 

To develop a cheap laptop we realised pretty quickly that we needed to rely on an open source model. Open source is not only free, but it is also very efficient, with the result that we don’t need powerful hardware. Also, the hardware needs to be simple. We want the children to be able to do basic maintenance of their laptops. In 2007, we produced our first laptop.

 

The approach is as follows: we go into a country and first talk to the government. This is important because we need them to agree to certain criteria. For example, the software must be free and open source; we don’t want them to make separate deals with proprietary software suppliers to be installed on our laptops. Secondly, we target children aged between 6 and 12 years. The laptops are not to be distributed to adults. Also, the children are to be the owners of the laptops. Thirdly, saturation: every child in the targeted region needs to receive a laptop. We don’t believe in pilot projects. Finally, connection: we need electricity and internet connectivity.

 

Typically the first challenge we encounter is electricity. We work with the local governments to extend the grid where necessary. Our approach is very pragmatic. For example, sometimes we’ll look at satellite photos to see where the lights are burning and overlay that information on the grid information. Similarly with regard to internet connectivity, sometimes we just need to 'hack' a solution, for example, by piggy-backing on a local government connection. Essentially it is a bottom’s up strategy. Our task is to solve problems, on the ground.

 

Next we need to get the teachers ready.  This is important because in a matter of months the children will be way ahead of the teachers. The logistics of the actual deployment is obviously a huge task.  Some of these areas are really remote.  For example, in one region Schneider Electric went in first to lay a brand new electricity network—this in a region where there is absolutely nothing in terms of modern infrastructure.  Then once the laptops are deployed we coach the kids to take the machines apart and reassemble them. Also, we rely on the local universities for repair services, with a support link back to OLPC.

 

There are other challenges too. For example, sometimes the local telco operators try to charge monopoly-like prices.  But we find that when we deploy the laptops, then the local network usually fails anyway. Obviously it needs a large upgrade to cope with the extra traffic; and that starts attracting other players in the market. We tend to advise governments to give a license to a new operator if they agree to provide free access to internet to the target groups.

 

To date, two countries—Uruguay and Peru—are fully saturated, and we have a next project underway in Rwanda. The impact is phenomenal, even if only due to the electrification. You can compare it to a Trojan horse. The children are the Trojan horse; it is via them that the technology comes in. But the knock-on effect on the parents, on local markets, on society is large, is incredible. Their enthusiasm for the technology, for the internet, is astounding. It is amazing to see the children start clustering around the places where there is connectivity. In one region we had a problem because the kids started clustering around the local airport; and it kept on crashing the local air traffic control. Now we see them clustering around the schools.

Ambivalent; to say the least. Looking at our youth, I don’t see much passion for technology. But perhaps they haven’t been given much chance either since everything is locked up. People talk about the ‘digital natives’, the youngsters who are about to enter the workforce, as if they’re technologically attuned. That is not my impression. The youth are not into IT; they’re into Facebook. And they’re not even sophisticated users of Facebook.

 

It is ironic, really. Our generation was the icon of freedom. In the 60s and 70s we rebelled and took our freedom. But today this same generation has locked everything up again. We’ve patented everything. Oh, the irony. The future is yours, we tell our youth, but we’re not prepared to give them that future.  

 

Sometimes I think that people are just waiting for us to die. I don’t see our youth fighting for their freedom either. They’d rather spend all their time on Facebook or blasting the night away in nightclubs. And for us, the freedom generation, it’s much easier to give them the cash for that night out, than to actually given them the future.

 

I’m a fan of the Pirate Party. It really is time that we move away from patents and intellectual property. You cannot control ideas! Obviously there are some powerful business agendas out there trying to maintain the status quo; but it is beginning to break up I think—look at the music industry. We pay for format and design, not content. Customer experience is what counts. I’m a big fan of Apple; even though Steve Jobs controls everything. 

 

Intellectual Property (IP) is an obsolete model. My vision on this has changed fundamentally over the years. In the past, like most tech entrepreneurs, I was pro IP. But it is a system that is based on incremental progress; and incremental progress is deadly. A complex system will perpetuate itself.

 

Today’s heroes ignore copyright. Drupal is a great example of the success of open source. But it also illustrates how in this country we are trailing behind. Dries Buytaert (the Belgian founder of Drupal) needs to go the U.S. to achieve his goals. The White House uses Drupal; and we’re still on Microsoft.

 

Infrastructure is obviously important too. Broadband internet access needs to become a birth right. WiFi should be open as the default setting. All this nonsense about security—what a conspiracy! It people opened up their WiFi accounts we’d have Brussels covered tomorrow. 

 

But I guess the problem begins with our educational system, which is rotten. Children hate school. The problem is that they hate education, while they love to learn. All children love to learn. There are two things—essential things—we do not teach at school: functional technology and money. Every teacher should have to do an exam in functional technology, that is, how to use technology effectively. And kids should have a laptop from the age of four; why not? Push the technology into their faces. Get that gamebox in the home! We need to teach kids to learn to navigate a world that is becoming more and more technological.  For example, at school we should introduce Wolfram’s Mathematica software in the primary schools. Children must learn to play with maths.  And we must teach them to work with resources like Wikipedia, but as critical thinkers, as people who understand how that knowledge system is put together.  Ultimately it is all about teaching kids to learn and to think.  I love this quote; “Today what we teach is confusion.”

 

In higher education, we should not have compartmentalised the disciplines to such an extent. The problem is that young people are moulded too early in a particular tract. And there are cultural factors too. The U.S. attracts a great deal of brilliance because they pay people properly. In Europe we have a red heart. We can’t be brilliant. Instead, we need to express solidarity. Our youth is studying humanities, not science. We’re all reading each other’s poetry.