It looks like Microsoft is finally starting to get over its initial contempt for the One Laptop Per Child project and their XO laptop. I’m not yet ready to temper my original reaction to Microsoft’s approach to international development, though.
The Wisdom of Crowds
The successful development of Vanuatu in this day and age is contingent on improvement in communications. In geographic terms, the majority of Vanuatu has little or no access to even basic communications services. In terms of population, the situation is better, but not by a lot.
We’ve known about this problem for a long time. We also have a very clear understanding of the limitations we face. Those of us who are devoted to solving technical problems in Vila, Santo and the islands have an intimate and detailed knowledge of the problems that can afflict us. Those working in development in more general terms have become adept at working around the shortcomings that poor communications place on us.
It’s clear as well that most – if not all – of the stakeholders in this game have some pretty clear ideas about how these problems can be addressed. It’s therefore difficult to understand why these issues continue to dog us as they do.
Getting Out of the Way
I’ve got a friend visiting right now, a colleague of mine from my previous life in the world of software start-ups and corporate manoeuvring. For about as long as the World Wide Web has been around, we’ve been part of a community of explorers, people who defined the Web, extended it and made its strengths our own. From the mid 1990s through the so-called Dot-Com Boom, we had the sense that we were pioneers, marking trails across a new and exciting space. The frontier seemed to have infinite possibilities.
Human history shows us that after the explorers come the missionaries, and after the missionaries come the colonists. Carpet baggers, speculators, misfits and refugees seeking a better future away from the centre of things – these are among the first to arrive. Then come the homesteaders. Then come government, roads, taxes and schools. Before long, the landscape begins to look like the one they left behind.
In this version of events, those who get least mention are those who were there first. Those who, rather than shape the world in their own image, adapted to the shape of the world until it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended.
This column’s purpose is neither to re-hash the history of Vanuatu nor to moralise about past actions. It is nonetheless useful to understand the shape of human trends, and to understand the forces that drive them. This is especially important because of Vanuatu’s nearly unique position as a country whose family- and village-based culture and ways have remained more or less intact.
Network Effects
Let me tell you a story:
Sese is worried. Her son Kaltaso has his heart set on getting a new toy for Christmas. She’s not quite sure what it does, exactly, but it’s the latest thing overseas. At least, that’s what Kal says. He tells her all his online friends have them, that it’s really fun to link them on the Internet and play together.
The toy is expensive, but not too expensive. Sese has talked it over with her husband, and he agrees that it’s good for the boy to spend time online with friends from around the world. If this toy helps with this, then it’s worth it. But there’s a problem: It’s not for sale anywhere in Vanuatu, let alone here on Pentecost.
Sese knows that you can buy things online, but she doesn’t have a bank account yet, let alone a credit card. So she sends an SMS to her cousin-sister Lily in Port Vila, asking for help. Lily works as an administrator for one of the online banking operations that opened up after the fibre optic link was installed. She knows about these things.
Lily texts back, saying that she’s checked on eBay and found exactly what Kal wants, at about 30% less than anywhere else. She’ll just send the cash from her PayPal account. She knows Sese doesn’t have a lot of cash so she asks if Sese could send 20 kilos of kava on the next ship. One of Lily’s boys is going to be circumcised soon, so it will save her a lot of expense. Kava costs about 40% less if you get it straight from the island.
Sese checks with her family, then writes to Lily to say that she’ll put the kava on Wednesday’s ship. But Lily has to promise not to say a word to anyone. Kal chats online all the time with Lily’s second born son, and if he gets word about the gift, it will spoil the surprise.
This little story is fiction, of course. It’s a description of how things could be in two or three years, if we do just a few little things.
Riding the Tide
For almost a month now, the Vanuatu IT Users Society has been conducting demonstrations of the One Laptop Per Child Project’s XO laptop. These demos have led to numerous conversations about computers, the Internet and access to information. What affect is this going to have on the Vanuatu way of life?
Most people assume that as a geek, I see technology as a Good Thing, one of the miracles of the modern age. That’s not always the case.
The professional life of an ICT professional is fraught with dangers. They’re not personal dangers, of course. There are few safer things to do than plunking down in front of a computer for several hours each day. The risks a geek faces are risks of responsibility. Every choice we make has implications, some of which can be quite serious, especially in places where resources are limited.
Black Smoke and Storm Clouds
Every weekday morning, in every street in Port Vila, we see a steady stream of people walking into town. On the road beside them, innumerable buses and cars drive by, belching black smoke into their faces. Just as regularly, we see complaints in the local media about this smoke. But nothing ever gets done about it.
Police and inspection officials don’t enforce the laws, and the drivers don’t make any real effort to clean up their act. Everybody knows they should. Everybody knows that this pollution causes health problems. Even the simplest metrics, like the dirt it leaves on our clothing, on our skin and under our nails, makes it impossible to deny that there’s a problem. And yet we do nothing.
Why? The answer is simple….
Stars in Their Eyes
In an online discussion recently, I defended the XO laptop by mentioning how impressed people were when I conducted demonstrations of the hardware and software. If the XO is such a mediocre piece of hardware, “why,” I asked, “do people walk away with stars in their eyes?”
I went on to say that in my experience, I’d never seen any technological device more appropriate to the particular task of providing a useful learning environment for children in remote and/or underdeveloped areas.
This was met with a particularly vehement explosion of outrage, accompanied by accusations that I was “happy because there’s a new toy in the block, to help [me] with [my] ideologically-motivated occupation.”
I confess to an impish desire to agree with that accusation.
OLPC Q&A
OLPC Q&A
There’s been a ton of interest in the OLPC laptop ever since the Vanuatu IT User Society (VITUS) obtained a prototype to demonstrate to people here in Vanuatu. A few readers will have already attended one of the VITUS demonstrations. In the interests of raising awareness about this new approach to learning technology, here are a few common questions and answers about the laptop, the project, and OLPC-related activities in Vanuatu.
Continue reading
Talking Technology
This week’s column starts with a mea culpa. The column about Microsoft’s meeting with the Ministry of Education raised some eyebrows, and both Ministry employees and individuals wrote in to point out that there were inaccuracies in the reporting. They rightly observed that the author did not attend the meeting in question, and was therefore presenting hearsay evidence. While efforts were made to corroborate the details presented, it is an unfortunate truth that no public record was available. If any of the facts were incorrectly reported, the responsibility for this lies entirely with the author.
In the course of discussions about how to properly correct the record, two points kept recurring, both explicitly and implicitly: So-called ‘geeks’ often focus far too much on technology and not nearly enough on what it’s actually for. Additionally, there’s often a lot of talk – some might say too much talk – based on speculation. Making blithe assumptions can spell disaster for any project, but those with high-tech as a principle ingredient are even more prone to failure because of their inherent complexity.
Software and the New Colonialism
A colleague of mine recently attended a meeting between the Ministry of Education and representatives for a new initiative sponsored by Microsoft. On the face of it, the offer on the table was compelling: Microsoft Windows and Office licenses for sale at about 700 vatu each for educational institutions. Huge investment in flagship schools in Vanuatu, with hundreds of new PCs in total running all the latest software at prices never seen before. How could anyone refuse?
Microsoft is not the only company to come to the sudden realisation that there are about 5 billion people out there who don’t buy their product. Many major IT corporations have taken a look at the mature European and North American markets and decided to begin developing markets elsewhere in the world.
It’s a great opportunity for them. Junior and intermediate managers trying to make a name for themselves are leading the exploration. Rather than navigate the shark-infested waters of corporate HQ, they’re establishing new territories, trying out new tactics and creating new opportunities for themselves and their customers.
This is not a bad thing in and of itself. But it does need to be understood.