I am curious as to how many of those who have commented on the OLPC project have been to a developing nation. The overwhelming negativity from this posts astounds me. I have worked with children in developing nations, and I have posed the question (directly to the children themselves), "If you could have anything in the world, right now, what would it be?" Their answer was not once clean water, more food, clothes, more money, to remove a leader from power or better medical care. 100% of the time, the answer was "an education." While the other things are nice, they did not see the value of food for today, because that did nothing to make for a better tomorrow. And yes, I even had children express their interest in obtaining an education while at the funeral of one of their friends who died, most likely from water-born illness. While some may think this attitude is a "feel good" sentiment, it is what these struggling children believe. They want to make permanent change in their nations, and they know they need an education to do that. OLPC and other programs that help bring that education to these students are changing lives for the better. The current research coming out of Peru right now is showing tremendous gains in learning since the implementation of OLPC. I would encourage you to take the time to dig deep into the actual research regarding any project before spouting off hollow, negative accusations.
The Triumph proved to be one of the better looking and performing pre-paid handsets we'd had the pleasure of holding in our sweaty mitts, but we had one major hangup: the name.
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I am curious as to how many of those who have commented on the OLPC project have been to a developing nation. The overwhelming negativity from this posts astounds me. I have worked with children in developing nations, and I have posed the question (directly to the children themselves), "If you could have anything in the world, right now, what would it be?" Their answer was not once clean water, more food, clothes, more money, to remove a leader from power or better medical care. 100% of the time, the answer was "an education." While the other things are nice, they did not see the value of food for today, because that did nothing to make for a better tomorrow. And yes, I even had children express their interest in obtaining an education while at the funeral of one of their friends who died, most likely from water-born illness. While some may think this attitude is a "feel good" sentiment, it is what these struggling children believe. They want to make permanent change in their nations, and they know they need an education to do that. OLPC and other programs that help bring that education to these students are changing lives for the better. The current research coming out of Peru right now is showing tremendous gains in learning since the implementation of OLPC. I would encourage you to take the time to dig deep into the actual research regarding any project before spouting off hollow, negative accusations.