Here is another lesson to be drawn from the experience of the OLPC XO series. Don’t take Nicholas Negroponte seriously. Even he doesn’t.
India has announced a $10 laptop, and critics cry that it isn’t technically possible. But the Tata Nano has shown that what we can build is limited less by technology and more by our imagination and the assumptions that frame our world.
India has announced major investments in education. Given the scale of needs, the government rightly believes in focusing on well-tested methodologies, rather than on risky bets such as the OLPC.
Nicholas Negroponte likes to point out that the OLPC project is “about learning, not about laptops.” So the Harvard International Review and OLPC News take a close look at that value proposition. It is a point worth pondering, for the OLPC is drawing serious money, most famously with Libya committing USD 250 million for 1.2 [...]