The other day I was in class and the lecture was addressing interactivity in intermedia or new media art practice. The instructor showed us a film clip of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project presented by Nicholas Negroponte. The project, in quick summary, is to provide Third World countries with laptop computers for educational purposes, at a the low cost of $100 and $50 by 2010. China, India, Thailand, Brazil, Nigeria, Egypt and Argentina are targets for distribution. In watching the clip, I was struck by Negroponte stating that to critcise the project would be "stupid" before he really got into the presentation.
Something about the presentation and Negroponte didn't sit right with me, so I decided to look into it a bit more. Negroponte seems to be heavily invested in promoting the project as a humanitarian effort and educational venture, but it seems like one of those issues that is in a grey area where "humanitarian" is a buzzword used to cause distraction. I am really unsure as to how his train of thought works; how is it that the widespread distribution of laptop computers for children will help their standards of living?
The Wikipedia article on the OLPC project has a section on criticisms of the project. One comes from Ivan Krstic, former Director of Security Architecture, which was originally posted on his blog on May 13, 2008:
I checked the footnotes for the quotes and found the original article by Steven Hamm for BusinessWeek. It seems that Negroponte, in stating this was not responding to Krstic's blog post, but to a statement that Hamm received through e-mail correspondence with Krstic. Krstic wrote,
This is where the reply from Negroponte comes from, in response to this statement made by Krstic in correspondence to Hamm.
Now, Negroponte is claiming that he has said no such thing to Krstic, and in fact, he has told him "the opposite". What would the inversion of Krsric's statement look like? I was curious as to what "the opposite" statement might be. I tried inverting the statement made by Krstic in Hamm's article and got, "As best I can tell, the organization is restructuring to become a more efficient laptop distribution and enabling effective educational use, while no longer wishing to focus on laptop manufacturing and sales operation." I'm not sure how I understand that when Negroponte says, "I said we're not promoting a model, we're promoting several models, including some we don't like--such as drill and practice." it is Krstic's statement inverted.
Aside from Negroponte's misleading response, he continues to promote the OLPC project as a "humanitarian" effort and that the project is primarily about education. In facing criticism, he uses some interesting tactics, particularly vilifying critics by saying they are "stupid" or that criticizing the project is similar to criticizing the Church or the Red Cross.1
I was also curious to what Negroponte's connections may be, and from the Wikipedia article found that he is the brother of John Negroponte, former United States Director of National Intelligence from 2005-2007, United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2007-2009 and United States Ambassador to Honduras, Iraq and the UN. I don't know if any of this is a relevant connection though...
Here are some links to check out if you are interested, regarding Nicholas and John Negroponte as well as the OLPC project on Wikipedia:
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child
And links to video presentation of the OLPC project:
Video on OLPC by Nicholas Negroponte:
hxxp://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_on_one_laptop_per_child.html
BBC documentary on the OLPC pilot project in Galadima, Nigeria:
hxxp://olpc.tv/2008/01/19/bbc-documentary-in-nigeria/
1. Originally the article "Negroponte: Criticising OLPC is like Criticising the Church" takes the quote from an article from Vanguard Online Edition (www.vanguardngr.com) where the original article is no longer available. The article can be read here, hxxp://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/negroponte_to_critic.html
Something about the presentation and Negroponte didn't sit right with me, so I decided to look into it a bit more. Negroponte seems to be heavily invested in promoting the project as a humanitarian effort and educational venture, but it seems like one of those issues that is in a grey area where "humanitarian" is a buzzword used to cause distraction. I am really unsure as to how his train of thought works; how is it that the widespread distribution of laptop computers for children will help their standards of living?
The Wikipedia article on the OLPC project has a section on criticisms of the project. One comes from Ivan Krstic, former Director of Security Architecture, which was originally posted on his blog on May 13, 2008:
The Wikipedia article then quotes Negroponte as responding to this statement as saying,Ivan Krstic said:
Nicholas Negroponte said:
I checked the footnotes for the quotes and found the original article by Steven Hamm for BusinessWeek. It seems that Negroponte, in stating this was not responding to Krstic's blog post, but to a statement that Hamm received through e-mail correspondence with Krstic. Krstic wrote,
Ivan Krstic said:
This is where the reply from Negroponte comes from, in response to this statement made by Krstic in correspondence to Hamm.
Now, Negroponte is claiming that he has said no such thing to Krstic, and in fact, he has told him "the opposite". What would the inversion of Krsric's statement look like? I was curious as to what "the opposite" statement might be. I tried inverting the statement made by Krstic in Hamm's article and got, "As best I can tell, the organization is restructuring to become a more efficient laptop distribution and enabling effective educational use, while no longer wishing to focus on laptop manufacturing and sales operation." I'm not sure how I understand that when Negroponte says, "I said we're not promoting a model, we're promoting several models, including some we don't like--such as drill and practice." it is Krstic's statement inverted.
Aside from Negroponte's misleading response, he continues to promote the OLPC project as a "humanitarian" effort and that the project is primarily about education. In facing criticism, he uses some interesting tactics, particularly vilifying critics by saying they are "stupid" or that criticizing the project is similar to criticizing the Church or the Red Cross.1
I was also curious to what Negroponte's connections may be, and from the Wikipedia article found that he is the brother of John Negroponte, former United States Director of National Intelligence from 2005-2007, United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2007-2009 and United States Ambassador to Honduras, Iraq and the UN. I don't know if any of this is a relevant connection though...
Here are some links to check out if you are interested, regarding Nicholas and John Negroponte as well as the OLPC project on Wikipedia:
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte
hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child
And links to video presentation of the OLPC project:
Video on OLPC by Nicholas Negroponte:
hxxp://www.ted.com/talks/nicholas_negroponte_on_one_laptop_per_child.html
BBC documentary on the OLPC pilot project in Galadima, Nigeria:
hxxp://olpc.tv/2008/01/19/bbc-documentary-in-nigeria/
1. Originally the article "Negroponte: Criticising OLPC is like Criticising the Church" takes the quote from an article from Vanguard Online Edition (www.vanguardngr.com) where the original article is no longer available. The article can be read here, hxxp://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/negroponte_to_critic.html
