<incom> OLPC (was: Re: From the CES in Las vegas)

Sat Jan 13 09:57:06 CET 2007

Hi Steve and everyone,

About 15 months ago Michael Gurstein posted a note on a different list 
(well I am not sure about that, part of the email's audit trail suggests 
this list) about the scandal of Media Labs Ireland, so it was not only in 
India that trust was misplaced.  I repost Michael's email at the end, 
hoping it is okay with Michael: the webpage at the Register listed in the 
email no longer seems to be available.

I would like to think that all the executives at OLPC are doing this in the 
best interests of the developing countries, if somewhat misguided, but with 
such precedents one must suspect that the executives have it all sown up 
and that the only people who will come out of this well, and very well, 
will be those executives.

Pat

At 00:48 12/01/2007, Steve Cisler wrote:
>I'd like to remind folks of a now defunct project
>instituted by Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab and J.
>Sachs during the short time he hung out at Harvard. It
>was called "Digital Nations" (circa 2000)and the
>saying was that 'no problem exists until Cambridge
>(Har/MIT) have discovered it'
>
>The idea was to get nations to join the lab and
>benefit from the collaboration of the researchers and
>planners in the member country. Up until that time
>most of the lab sponsors were companies (I worked at
>Apple when we supported the lab). At that first
>meeting Ghana, the state of Alaska, and India were
>ready to put their money down.  I told a couple of the
>Indian delegation (many from IIT) that MIT should be
>paying them to take part, not the other way around.
>
>Besides this ongoing discussion about the XO computer,
>there is one out of India/Pakistan as well as the web
>log
>
>http://www.olpcnews.com/ in which there's a very
>interesting post about the plan to retail the XO if a
>buyer will pay for two, one for her and one for a poor
>kid in Rwanda or Thailand or some other target
>country.
>
>and
>
>http://wiki.laptop.org/go/TamTam:How_to_use_TamTam1
>
>And for a different approach to cheap computers, take
>a look at this effort out of Taiwan:
>
>http://www.viapc-1.com/
>"empowered connectivity initiative"
>
>Steve Cisler
>
>--- Eduardo Villanueva <evillan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I still
> > believe that the
> > stratospheric hubris of a bunch of techies from the
> > MIT is no replacement
> > for locally developed solutions to locally diagnosed
> > solutions.
>
>
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>Thread-Topic: [IP] Ireland counts the cost of MIT Media Lab fiasco
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>From: "Gurstein, Michael" <gurstein at ADM.NJIT.EDU>
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: David Farber [mailto:dave at farber.net]
>Sent: October 5, 2005 12:36 PM
>To: Ip Ip
>Subject: [IP] Ireland counts the cost of MIT Media Lab fiasco
>
>Begin forwarded message:
>
>From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne at warpspeed.com>
>Date: October 4, 2005 7:26:16 PM EDT
>To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net at warpspeed.com>
>Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Ireland counts the cost of MIT Media Lab fiasco
>Reply-To: dewayne at warpspeed.com
>
>
>Original URL: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/04/
>mit_media_lab_ireland/>
>
>Ireland counts the cost of MIT Media Lab fiasco
>
>By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at
>theregister.co.uk)
>Published Tuesday 4th October 2005 22:11 GMT
>The Irish government invested $40m of taxpayers' money in MIT's
>Media's Lab Europe - and has bugger all to show for it.
>
>A report by the Republic's public auditor-general also reveals that
>Media Lab executives awarded themselves large severance pay-offs when
>the money was running out, and refused to refund public money as the
>original agreement had specified.
>
>Eire's comptroller called the output of the Media Lab over five years
>"dismal". The Lab netted only ˆ7m in sponsorship and saw just 24
>scientific papers published. In addition, 12 patents filed by the Lab
>are worthless. The Lab added nothing to Ireland's education drive
>while it went its merry way, and after liquidation will leave the
>Republic with just ˆ300,000 in assets.
>
>The European Media Lab was launched at the height of the tech bubble
>but closed its doors in January this year. Its output may disappoint
>the Irish government, but it won't surprise anyone familiar with the
>original MIT Media Lab.
>
>[snip]
>Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
>
>
>
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