Thanks for posting that Tomo. I wonder if this use of p2p has any relevance to the current supreme court case about p2p stuff. My understanding of the case is that if the supreme court decides that there’s no legitimate use of p2p they entertainment industry can shut down companies that make p2p stuff.

Do it and see what happens, it has a market just like when IBM Came out 25 yrs ago.

IBM was formed in 1924.

Furthermore, this isn't about "having a market" or profit.

This is about avoiding a massive technological divide on our planet. It is about attempting to level the playing field as much as possible for children who just happen to be born in less than ideal conditions.

I think the Internet and electricity problems could be solved relatively easy.

If just the school itself had electricity then the children could recharge their laptops while at school and run off the battery power when they are at home.

As for Internet access, again this could be something that possibly only the school would have to need. Remember back in the days before your handheld was wireless? You used things like AvantGo to sync your handheld up with the most recent news so you could take it with you. The same idea could be used to keep these children with up to date information.

I think that that's the p2p idea. The schools could have different databases for different topics (like geology or Shakesphere) and ask the students to sync up to what they'll need for each class.

I think there's no way the current p2p court battles would affect this kind of p2p, as it is the same kind of p2p that cellular networks use, among other things.

I think the more general and most powerful implementation of p2p here would allow anyone who was connected to anyone who was connected to anyone ... to be connected to the internet. So if I am close to my local post office which is close to the local school which is close to another guy who is close to a real internet connection, I could have internet. If any of the links are too far apart, then a higher latency sneakernet connection will have to be added between nodes, meaning it'll only be really good for transferring emails daily, and requesting webpages a day in advance... which is still better than nothing.

I am assuming that the solution to power isn't as simple as assuming each school would have power (nor can we assume stable p2p connections will exist out to every endpoint). One idea is hand cranks. I can just imagine that in my head and it's awesome. A lot of poor places have tons of sun. It's too bad we haven't put the resources into research and development of cheaper solar power.

Hell yeah, that is so cool.

If this kind of thing ever took off, I think it would be really intersting to see what kind of little hardware hacks these kids would make. A lack of dispensable income would give them the motivation. They could be a vast source of untapped technological creativity.

feed them first. then stop dropping bombs on them. then give them computers.

I always liked the idea of giving computers to ghetto children. or 'tots' Even giving darts to tots is a good idea. We should have a program called 'darts for tots'.

I can't help thinking that all of this is a bit idealistic. I remember when there was this huge push for computers in the class room. "Computers in the classroom!" It was this huge trend. What happend? They put computers in the classroom and all we had was word processors that taught us how to not spell and organ trail. bullshit.

Now that computers are in the classroom the #1 thing people do with them is word processing, email and power point. Those are all great things but nothing to loose sleep over. They have been there for 20 years now. I don't think anyone has learned anything except for how to be dependent on microsoft or apple products.

The realistic view is that we give 10000 $100 computers to very poor people. 1 uses it to learn and 9999 use it for porn and hot plates.

Thats that almost a million dollars to fund porn and only 100 dollars for actual noble use. If star trek has taught me anything its that you can't put the cart before the horse. Prime directive. Everything has its time.

A time to build up,a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

Feeding and not bombing is important, but I really think you are underestimating human potential, especially in children.

What makes you think that there is less potential in these children than any other child to do great things with the assistance of modern tools?

I never had a computer at home growing up, my first experiences with computer came from tinkering around with the Apple IIs in my gradeschool's computer lab. Certainly I was not 1 in 10,000. It was that little exposure that lead me on to what I do today. And we are talking about putting a more powerful machine in the hands of *each* child. I was sharing 2 dozen Apple IIs with 1200 other kids.

Children have an amazing capacity for learning and an abundance of curiosity. Your 1/10,000 figure might be true if the idea was to put these machines in the hands of the adults who are set in their ways, but it is not.

As for the prime directive -- these are not people who are completely isolated from a more modern world. These are people in danger of being left behind while the rest of society advances. We aren't putting the cart ahead of the horse, we are trying to put these people in the cart and bring them along with us.

$100 million isn't shit. We spend that much every two days occupying Iraq.

Oooh, I want to play Organ Trail. I can see it now.

"Make a trek across the West to harvest organs! If you can't find any natives, you'll have to harvest from your fellow caravaners. Whoever makes it to San Francisco alive with the most organs intact wins!"

Sounds almost as good as Puerto Rico.

karen: lol

I think it's okay to be skeptical but I still think there is massive potential here. Ryan points out that we'd be giving much more to these kids, and we'd be giving it to those with much less than middle class Americans. People with ready access to the internet, free libraries full of great books, televisions, encyclopedias, etc. may find that they spend much of their computer time word processing, email, and making flashy presentations. But I'm hoping that these computers will be used to download textbooks and other information that isn't available at all.

Ryan compares the amount of money to the amount we spend in Iraq daily. The way we disperse aid dollars overseas is perverse. We could transform certain developing nations into being self-sustaining global economic partners by giving them a certain amount of aid. Instead we give no infrastructure investment aid and just wait until a huge humanitarian disaster strikes and then send them an order of magnitude more than it would have cost to prevent that. Not that the US gives much at all percentagewise compared to many other rich nations.

Back when I was a young, naive teacher I spent some time in the poorest (or was at the time) Columbus public high school. (In case you're interested, they rank relative wealth by percentage of kids on free/reduced lunch.)

Anyway, they had what they called academies, where kids got to basically choose a major or a field to focus on - nursing/health care, criminal justice, technology, something else. I worked with some kids in the technology program, and they were really bright, capable kids who could do some kick-ass things on computers. I was impressed at the time at the potential these kids had.

Now I worry about them. Interest or even great ability doesn't always translate to "real world" success. Not to say it isn't hugely important, but I think that exposure to technology needs to be coupled with some sort of life-skills training. They need to know how and where they can apply those skills and how to (I hate myself for saying this, I really do) market themselves to employers, universities, whomever. There are a lot of rules or expectations that kids who grow up in poverty just aren't aware of.

giving them computers is sweet and all. I just think there is a better use of time and publicity.

Emily -- you're so right. How can schools prepare students realistically? A friend of mine who is from a poor school district said that a few of them were prepared for college while the rest were basically prepared for the army or prison. Did you find a simular situation?

I really do think a "life-skills" class or some similar in-school class that focuses on expecations/rules/whatever would be helpful. Things like how to apply for jobs, what's appropiate for work and what's not, how to deal with banks. Things we probably saw our parents do that these kids may not necessarily have seen.

I do think that in poorer high schools you have a select few really bright kids who want to go to college and a bunch of kids who don't feel like college or any sort of job training is an option, or don't like school or don't see the need for it.

It's a thorny issue, though, because it gets to what the parents are responsible for, what schools are responsible for, who is accountable to whom for what.

A life skills class would be great. A component should include sucessful students from a district return to talk about what they wished they'd known.

Many things in education walk the line between what the parents are responsible for, what schools are responsible for, who is accountable to whom for what, e.g. sex ed, history, biology, etc. Personally, I'd rather have kids get something twice than not at all.

We had a "votech" program at my high school where kids could choose to spend part of the day at a vocational school. I know two of the options were computer support and cosmotology.. There might have been one for mechanics also. There was also a co-op program where you could spend some days of the week working. One of the guys I knew worked for a computer programming company.

I would think this wouldnt be too hard to arrange, considering i went to a really rural school that wasnt particularly wealthy. This type of technical training was really popular among the kids who didnt want to (or were financially unable to) go to college.

Not exactly a life skills "class" but something I think was a good thing to bridge the divide between school and reality.