[p2p-research] Fwd: [witfor] $35 mirage- if it is a laptop, why does it look like a tablet?

Fri Jul 23 12:47:53 CEST 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Satish Jha <jha.satish at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 2:41 PM
Subject: [witfor] $35 mirage- if it is a laptop, why does it look like a
tablet?
To:

 The announcement of the MHRD showcasing a $35 laptop is intriguing to say
the least. Initially MHRD  dismissed OLPC saying the “pedagogy of learning
with laptops is suspect”. Then it went on to announce a $10 laptop that
turned out to be a magnified USB, instead of the regular 1x2.5 cms it was
12.5x19 cms in size and added a functionality to see the file names.

That announcement embarrassed India in the world community. The new
announcement may suggest that someone in MHRD does not get the message that
India has no track record of product creation and all such announcement have
achieved one thing: depriving 25 million children that enter the school
system every year of an opportunity to learn the way the developed world
learns for a percent of their cost.

The idea of affordable, connected, rugged laptops that worked regardless of
infrastructure and teaching quality availability constraints with “learning
learning” rather than “rote teaching” was launched by One laptop per Child
initiative of Nicholas Negroponte in 2002.

Calling OLPC just a laptop is a bit like a human being made of a pair of
arms, legs and a torso. Relative to that the $30 device showcased by MHRD is
what China has been selling for some time, a CPU, a keyboard and a screen
slapped together with little by way of educational applications, or
ruggedness that works under infrastructure challenges nor the pedagogic
capabilities we need for learning.

Its not clear who will make it, how will it be productionzed, what range of
applications will be offered, how does it aid education, what will be the
real final price. In fact, considering MHRD has displayed a kind of “ipad”
without calling it an ipad or something along those lines and declaring it
as a laptop raises suspicion about its about real nature.

In fact someone from within the Government informed me that the price quoted
is for millions of pieces. They are going to spend 2 billion dollars ( Ten
thousand crores) to reach millions of students with a subsidy component of
one billion dollar. I don’t know which IIT did the research. Some RTI
activists must take the initiative to get the full details. What some feel
is that they went to china ( one IIT Director and another undersecretary)
bought some pieces, sat together and wrote some specifications and asked the
minister to release the specs and the gadget.

In fact the bill of material for a cheap laptop in China is already under
$50. But that laptop has little of any capabilities that OLPC has for the
villages. That does not have the ruggedness, the screen or the range of
applications that work with OLPC laptops and are designed specifically for
that.

It would seem that rather than reduce the duty, that alone is more than the
claimed cost of the laptop, and bring the cost of the real thing, OLPC, in
India further down, MHRD decided to create something that may create an
impression that something is being done without actually producing it.

OLPC has been transforming the way education is delivered for 32 months now.
Its been adding more than country a month to the movement of offering the
most marginalized children an opportunity to stand up shoulder to shoulder
with the best educated peer in the world. Its been analysed, experimented
with, tested, improved and now it has the next version willthe applications
that will cost $100 or less by January 2011.

Rather than embracing that, a desire to produce something that has not been
tested yet makes the government’s motive questionable, to say the least.
While it will produce little, it will impact the ability of people to make
up their mind and move ahead with what is available today.

It took about $200 million, 70 MIT scientists and 3000 engineers over about
3 years to develop OLPC laptops. Its been tried and tested in 40 countries
for education. 2.5 million children have transformed their lives with the
help of OLPC.

Time value of money is a basic concept in finance. It works in education as
well. A child denied that access at the right age will unlikely make up for
that as swiftly as MHRD may think. But then 63 years of keeping India
ignorant was not possible without making announcements year after year that
had no legs. While we sincerely hope this one is not one of the same, at
best it looks like a poor imitation, hastily announced to stall some major
decisions that may have been in the offing.

MHRD may want to appreciate that “not invented here” syndrome killed many a
thriving corporations. Untried and untested ideas in fields that are rather
new may not have any different results.

Bundled with all that OLPC has, the MHRD laptop may not cost less than $500
as we speak. By the time someone produces it, adds the logistics, margins
etc, it will be still touching $100. By the times someone organizes the
applications needed and considers distributing it, its prices will fly many
times higher. In that sense, the announcement is at best premature, at worst
a design to deprive the students starting school now an opportunity to
leapfrog a few generations ahead for just Rs 10 per day when midday meal
scheme alone costs about Rs 7 a day.

-- 
__________________
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siZKBRSqG-U
Watch OLPC at Katha on : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n57KOQZ27Iw
Contribute to OLPC India for Katha and similar schools on Paypal: Account
olpc.katha at gmail.com
Voice: http://www.voiceamerica.com/voiceamerica/vepisode.aspx?aid=46234
Print:
http://www.bhaskar.com/2010/05/02/education-to-all-is-a-big-challenge-929577.html

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