I can still vividly remember how much I wanted a computer, and how happy I was to eventually get one*. For some children today a computer would cost their parents’ annual income. It was rather moving to read about the first real deployment of the One Laptop Per Child computers, and see the photos of the children:
Link: ivan krstić · code culture » First OLPC deployment: now it’s real
There are going to be disappointments, and problems, and scandals, but the project is marvellous and will improve people’s lives - not just the children’s but their families and communities. The “give them food instead” argument is both astonishingly ignorant and somewhere between patronising and downright racist. Most people in the world have enough food, and have enough clothes - they need access to education, information and communication, tools to create things, and a voice.
*Although technically I got the tape player, joystick and software, and my eldest sister got the computer.
