OLPC, We hardly knew ye

The wires and blogs are sounding a death knell for the One Laptop Per Child project, which once aimed to put a cute, green, pedal-powered laptop into the hands of poor children around the world, for around $100/machine.

This has been a project that people have loved to hate almost since it was conceived, drawing criticism from computer makers, Bill Gates, Business Week, and development experts everywhere. My feeling is that anything that could offend so many people at once must have something going for it.

This is not to say it wasn't a project doomed from the start, which it was, but for none of the reasons cited by its critics. Negroponte, the OLPC founder, had one enormous innovation that nobody seemed to pick up on - he wanted to give the computers to kids, and give them unrestricted access to do with the technology as they wished. I'm sure he was thinking about kids in the West who tinker with their phones and computers and surpass their parents somewhere between the ages of six and twelve.

Whether this is a good idea or not could be debated. I would suggest asking any Silicon Valley engineer or entrepreneur whether they learned to use computers in a controlled classroom setting - the answer will rarely be affirmative. (My experience has been that people who are good with technology think giving machines directly to children is brilliant - and people who suck with technology think it's insane. Who should you believe?) But this is not the point, because this issue almost didn't enter the debate - it was so far outside the way that development projects are run in this age that many didn't even notice the ambitious access to be given to children; perhaps they couldn't even conceive of something so unbureaucratic.

It was an ambitious idea then, but doomed from the start because it cut all the traditional development players out of the market. No educational experts to build new curriculums specializing in Computer Assisted Learning, Integrated Technology Classrooms and other acronyms that serve primarily to legitimize bureaucrats. No teachers to control access to the technology. No continued role for donors, governments or political parties, no monitoring and evaluation or foreign consultants. The OLPC simply left no role for all the people who make their living solving poverty. Just computers in the hands of children, to use as the children wanted.

I think it was just a little bit too much freedom for most development types to wrap their heads around.