ULPN

This article is about a gadget that doesn’t exist, one we shouldn’t waste a single neuron on, according to our government. So going on with this is a waste of time, and I suggest you stop reading.

But if you believe the technological and intellectual gap can be narrowed, I invite you to keep reading about Un Laptop Por Niño.

Negroponte calls his project OLPC - One Laptop Per Child. A name that captures the real meaning of this project, a meaning that seems to be lost on the director of Enlaces, Hugo Martínez:

“The first batch of computers from Negroponte’s project will be delivered between December 2006 and January 2007, so it would be utopian to commit to a number of computers that don’t exist today” “On the other hand, we think the essential thing is to move faster on testing the conditions for implementing this project. The development of the hardware will bring down the cost of laptops in any case, but the questions have to do with their pedagogical use, with the content and with the kind of interactions that will take place,” Martínez explained.

Since Mr. Martínez carries about as much weight as a bag of popcorn when it comes to technology, I’m going to quote someone who weighs a lot more (literally, and technologically): Ethan Zuckerman , creator of GeekCorps and someone who has worked with Negroponte on earlier projects.

Zuckerman has written on worldchanging about ULPN: One Laptop Per Child - a Preview of the Hundred Dollar Laptop

Zuckerman was invited by Negroponte to give his opinions on the product, an opinion that matters if we consider the projects Zuckerman works on, such as GeekCorps, whose purpose is “to promote the growth of developing countries by sending highly trained technology volunteers to teach communities how to use innovative technologies to solve development problems”. Or the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where our distinguished fellow Chilean Carlos Osorio also works (he should be our national CIO, in my humble opinion).

I’ll write about that article in the post that follows this one…