troung

Libya to buy laptops for all nation's kids
All 1.2 million school-age children will be connected to the Web

NEW YORK - The government of Libya has reached an agreement with an American nonprofit group to provide inexpensive laptop computers for all of the nation's 1.2 million schoolchildren, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

With the project scheduled to be completed by June 2008, Libya could become the first nation in which all school-age children are connected to the Internet through educational computers, Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop per Child project, told the newspaper.

The $250 million deal, reached Tuesday, would provide the nation with 1.2 million computers, a server in each school, a team of technical advisers, satellite internet service and other infrastructure.

The One Laptop per Child project, which has the support of the United Nations Development Program, aims to provide laptops to school-aged children worldwide _ for about $100 each. It has reached tentative purchase agreements with Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria and Thailand.

Negroponte, a computer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he had met with Moammar Gadhafi and the project appealed to the Libyan leader's political agenda of creating a more open Libya and becoming an African leader.

The two men discussed the possibility that Libya would also pay for laptops for poorer African nations like Chad, Niger and Rwanda, said Negroponte, who is the brother of U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

Gadhafi surprised the world in late 2003 when he swore off terrorism and announced plans to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. Libya was eager to end the international isolation and economic hardships from United Nations and U.S. sanctions. The U.S. has since opened an embassy in Tripoli.

A telephone call to that capital seeking comment from Libyan government spokesman Hassan al-Shawish went unanswered Wednesday.

Test models of the computers will be distributed to the participating countries in November, and mass production is expected to begin by July 2007, Negroponte said. They are to be produced by Taiwanese computer maker Quanta Computer Inc.

The machines are to be equipped with hand cranks or foot pedals, so that children can use them when electricity is too costly or not available. Expected to initially cost $150 and then be reduced in price, they will have wireless network access and run on an open-source operating system, such as Linux.

The project was inspired by Negroponte's experience giving Internet-connected laptops to children in Cambodia. He said the first English word spoken by those children was "Google."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15219383/

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To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

YellowFever

Great.
1.2 million more potential customers for porn and poker sites.

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Anon

Techno-socialism?

Swift Sword

Why not?

The ability to gather and manipulate information really does have a tendancy level the playing field.

The INTERNET is an isotropic plane if it is nothing else.

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Anon

You're seriously asking me why i dont favor socialism?

astralis

reminded me of bryan c of CDF/TMF's quote,

Swift Sword

Hi M21,

No, not socialism per se.

I would not call investing heavily in education "socialism" but rather fancy it as "good public policy".

In general, there are three human pursuits where cost is essentially not an object: courtship, warmaking and education. In any of these fields, there is no practical limit to expense; the question of these endeavors is not "how much will it cost?" but "how much have you got?"

You can call it whatever you want but Qadaffi's initiative is a correct move IMO.

In the United States, there is no reason for such an investment in education as Qadaffi is making in his subjects' future because the current Administration has always pushed for importing skilled labor under H1 paperwork rather than developing an indigenous capability.

Many people are trapped in secondary education facilities from sea to shining sea across the fruited plains which rate not much more than live human storage facilities. What is tragic is many of those sitting there under law already know that when they are processed through these facilities and meet or exceed State mandated performance criteria, they will not be a marketable commodity in the face of the imports.

A good exercise in education is to observe how the people who determine public educational policy choose to educate their own children. Lots of interesting observation on how power is acquired and maintained.

Regards,

William

joey2

that 100$ laptop developed by MIT peeps.. i must say very good one :D
the thing is if u dont connect it to the net it disconnects or something like tht
nonetheless very good move will provide all basic needs for the students...
but i thot they r giving dell xpx m1210...

Parihaka

Free and comprehensive education for children is not an exclusively socialist concept, it provides monetary gains for whatever society implements it.

Tronic

Hey, I think this was like a UN project, wasn't it???

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joey2

nah it was developed by MIT group financed by maybe UN..
those r pc's u have to connect to the internet else it'll get deactivated or something...
no microsoft only chip build Os i think...

joey2

if these are the 100$ pc's they r definitely the ones dones by MIT peeps.
however here within 100$ u get a healthy P3 machine with adecent 20 gig HDD ofcourse not new asproduction lines have stopped.... excluding the monitor.
these r more like embedded system rasther than configurable PC.