Technology and Development Part I

In a time when our verbally challenged politicians make lofty claims of providing adequate education and leaving “no child behind”, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is making serious inroads towards providing affordable educational solutions for children that need it the most. In the 21^st century technology will play a vital roll in reducing poverty and increasing educational attainment. MIT has already started blazing down this path through their involvement in the $100 laptop project and providing OpenCourseWare via internet.

The $100 laptop project is aimed at designing an affordable, stripped down laptop to be distributed to school children around the world. They have chosen a seemingly unattainable slogan, “1 laptop per child”, for a world that often finds itself hard pressed to provide one teacher per every hundred children. The expectation is that Education Ministries in developing nations will purchase the laptops and distribute them to children enrolled in their public school system. The most important features of these laptops is that they will be broadband wireless ready and have an alternative power source (a hand crank). Ideally this will provide an unfathomable window to the world for millions of children who suffer through poverty and whom may never have a chance to leave their villages or urban dwellings. Not only will children be able to use them as educational resources, but working adults will be able to use them to check on weather forecasts potential draught conditions etc.

The $100 laptop project will face problems that seem to be inherent to development projects. Initially education ministries will not have the capital to purchase one laptop per child causing distribution problems. Partial laptop distribution may in turn cause two subclasses of lower class children, “laptop kids” and “non laptop kids”. In many countries set to purchase the $100 laptops education standards are minimal and high illiteracy rates exist. In these conditions the two above mentioned subclasses of children will diverge further, into literate laptop children and illiterate children. There also exists the possibility for government corruption. But it seems unlikely that kleptocratic government officials will hoard stripped down laptops the way they like to hoard natural resource windfalls.

In conjunction with the $100 laptop program MIT has published a wide offering of its course materials online. The program is called MIT OpenCourseWare and features syllabuses, homework assignments, readings, tests and video lectures from the majority of its courses. The $100 laptop combined with OCW may bring to reality the far fetched illusion of someone in a thatched roofed hut in Cambodia learning Aeronautical Science via internet on their laptop. Will these projects have as profound an impact as predicted? Maybe. If the projects stick to their mission and receive proper funding the sky is the limit. If it gets caught up in red tape and shafted by donors it will be merely another great idea.

I am optimistic about these two projects and the implications of providing internet access to the masses. The WWW not only can be used as an educational resource but can also be used to emancipate the voices of billions of people whom are currently neglected. No matter what happens MIT deserves high acclaim for these projects and has set a great example for other institutions, government agencies and companies.

CTM