September 2008

This week's Technology Salon was on information sharing and ways to use social media and peer-generated content in international development. Less of a lecture and more of a roundtable discussion, lots of interesting ideas were floated, from using Peace Corps volunteers as on-the-ground information resources to running contests for ways to use technology in development scenarios.

The conference opened with presentations by three hard hitting visionaries -- Counsellor Lisa Chiles, the senior most career officer at USAID; Michael Rawding from Microsoft's Unlimited Potential, and Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. Coordinator for information technology and foreign policy. Chiles provided an overview of the promises of technology, focusing on finding low-hanging fruits in education where a modest, well-directed investment can dramatically help an underfunded education system. Rawding spoke on the Microsoft roadmap for developing countries; a mix of market expansion and market creation (I mean, philanthropic work). Gross reminded us that the world is changing in unpredictable ways due to technology, and creating a global, mobile workforce where people are no longer (I'd argue, slightly less) bound to grow up to do the same work their parents do.

The rest of the day was largely panels - on ICT for disaster preparedness and relief, mobile banking, PPPs (Public-Private Partnerships) eHealth.

ICT and disaster response was mainly a show-and-tell of various tools and websites (all leveraging Microsoft technology). Absent was any discussion or mention of Sahana (an open source, quick-deployment disaster information management system) or the amazing work done using ning.com (Web 2.0 and quasi-open-source) to provide coordinated responses and information about the hurricanes this season.

This entry is the third in the four-part series, "The XO Files: I Want to Believe" Read Part I here, and
Part II, The New 4PC Market, and its Failings

The XO Files: I Want To Believe

Part III: Re-imagining the OLPC Distribution

Concern over the original distribution plan was what got me writing for OLPCNews.com. The belligerent anti-pilot-project attitude, the requirement to buy the laptops in lots of 1million units, and the hushed discussions about the costs beyond the "$100" laptop. What has OLPC done and what should it continue to change to make XO deployment smoother and more successful?

The XO Files: I Want To Believe

Reading WorldChanging's "editorial retrospective" by Ethan Zuckerman on the article on the OLPC XO he posted in June, 2006 really made me wish that the project had, well, worked out better. Articles like Ethan's remind me of the good work and ideals that have gone into the OLPC XO, which both refreshes me and frustrates me further. This post begins a four-part series on the One Laptop Per Child project, some of the key problems it has faced, and the amazing promise that it still holds for international development and global education.

I Want To Believe: Part I: Laptop project or education project?

The XO, despite anything else, remains an amazing chunk of technology and an exemplary model of innovation for change. Ethan Zuckerman focused on the amazing feats of engineering possible with a bit of foresight, some tight cost and design constraints, and some really smart people: