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JORGE’S ANSWER CON TINUED
Uruguay, Peru
and Venezuela are
implementing new
technology progams
for education that
aim to eradicate
the internal and
external digital
divide, starting with
their children.
programs to get their citizens connected. Some countries have already
laid the groundwork for programs to help alleviate this technological
divide. Uruguay, Peru and Venezuela are implementing new technology
programs for education that aim to eradicate the internal and external
digital divide, starting with their children. One of the pioneer programs
in this area is the well-known OLPC (One Laptop per Child) program
started by Nicholas Negroponte with the help of MIT Media Lab (
Massa-chussets Institute of Technology). As its name indicates, the program’s
main goal is to provide every child with his or her own laptop.
The project focuses primarily on developing countries with highly
under-connected populations. OLPC is built on the basic principles of
saturation, connectivity, free software, and Wiki. Through “saturation,”
each child in a certain school, classroom, school district, etc., receives his
or her own XO (a special type of laptop OLPC provides to schoolchildren).
This is OLPC’s ultimate vaccine against the digital divide. Young children
in elementary school don’t necessarily need to know how to read and
write to use the XO; thus its reach extends beyond the school environment to the home. “Connectivity” is designed to create a type of wireless
network: like a chain, one XO connects to other XOs, and where there is
an Internet connection, the XOs share a signal. Kids can create networks
in their neighborhoods and among other groups. Innovative free software allows children to learn and teach by working with one another and
promoting OLPC’s Wiki. Wiki makes materials kid-friendly. This is about
philanthropy, not business—and that means not-for-profit. The only cost
the project incurs is to get people connected, that is, getting an XO into
the hands of every child and teacher in need.
Allowing the generations of tomorrow to have Internet access today
will make a real difference in the perception of technology and consequently our access to it. Empowering a child and his or her family with a
laptop will open up the door to new educational and professional
opportunities.
JONATHAN ANSWERS:
JONATHAN ZI T TRAIN
is a professor of law at
Harvard Law School, and
co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet
& Society. He is author of
The Future of the Internet—
And How to Stop It.
The biggest challenge
is making sure that
“access to the Internet” is true and full as the
network is built out. Many
people see mobile phones
as the way to reach the
next one billion network
users. These phones are
useful—and can, with the
cooperation of the phone
or network provider, do
far more than place and
receive telephone calls.
But that’s a big caveat:
with the cooperation of
