Vision of One Laptop Per Child
Check out this cool animation highlighting the “Vision” of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program. I love the simplicity in the messaging and design of this video. All major projects and initiatives SHOULD start with a clear statement and “visualization” of the vision, such as this… and can help engage your stakeholders, users and other community members alike.
Also check out the other blog post pointing to some potentially troublesome future for the OLPC program.
One Laptop Per Child – On Life Support?
Am sure you are already aware about Nicholas Negroponte’s “One Laptop Per Child” program, (also check out the cool “vision” video here)which over the last few years has gained considerable momentum and accolades… in addition to a healthy amount of criticism. Back in business school, many times I have scratched my head to the financial viability of a program like this… in addition to the long term sustainability. Sure there are some generous souls out there and would love to spend/donate/give-away… but even the noblest of all ideas need a “realistic” financial plan. Four decades of global charitable contributions have poured trillions/pentillions of dollars into Africa… and failed to produce any comparable returns – forget about long lasting effects. The continent if at all, is in even more dire need of resources and funds. How many case studies do we need before we learn our lesson?
Anyways, back to the OLPC topic – The original goal of the project was to reduce the cost to market to about $100 per unit. However, insufficient volume and configuration changes have ensured that dream remains elusive, and cost to market to about $188 per unit. What’s worse – a series of reorganizations in the recent few years have alienated several key contributors. OLPC Director of Security, Ivan Krstic, left the program earlier this year, complaining that, “the internal restructuring reflected a fundamental change of vision that he couldn’t accept”. Ivan continues to blast the program on his personal blog. Ranting of a not-so-happy-ex-employee? Not so fast. Ivan points to several key issues, including infrastructure. He wrote:
“We have no real support infrastructure for these rollouts, our development process is not allocating any time for dealing with critical deployment issues that (will inevitably) come up, and we have no process for managing the crises that will ensue”.
Another key excerpt from his personal blog:
“Put differently, OLPC can’t claim to be preoccupied with learning and not with training children to be office computer drones, while at the same time being coerced by hollow office drone rhetoric to deploy the computers with office drone software. Nicholas used to say the thought of the XOs being used to teach 6-year olds Word and Excel made him cringe. Apparently, no longer so. Which is it? The vacillation needs to stop. As they say in the motherland: shit or get off the pot.”
A “big enough” population out there thinks that Nicholas is insane, even adding that he is a “terrible manager and leader”. A case in point – on May 20, 2008, at the recent OLPC Country Workshop, Nicholas said that the OLPC mission statement “has not changed one ounce”. And the very next minute, he introduced a fourth version of the mission statement, entirely different from the previous three reported on OLPC News not long ago. Hmmm… The original Five Core Principles were:
1. Child Ownership
2. Low Ages
3. Saturation
4. Connection
5. Free and Open Source
Then how does XO (the Microsoft Windows version) fit in this vision?
Bottom line – The OLPC project is now struggling to sustain momentum, and might end up on life support if its leadership can’t turn things around.
But hold on… this blog post isn’t all about bashing the OLPC program… it’s to celebrate the success, even if limited, of the program, including 600,000 units sold in the first six months, for more than $200 million. And how can you forget that this program helped create a new market segment, ultra-low-cost laptops, where there is more Linux than Windows on offer. So check out the video below – OLPC program distributes 650 laptops in a remote school on Cambodia… and the reaction from a grateful community. Do you find it interesting that in Cambodia, the Defense Minister if the “official cheerleader” for the program? Hmmm… wonder what happened to the Ministry of Education.
Also check out my previous post about Nicholas reporting on the OLPC program.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3364742746081625799
Tags: Business School, Charitable Contributions, Configuration Changes, Crises, Critical Deployment, Deployment Issues, Dire Need, Excerpt From, Featured, Financial Viability, Fundamental Change, Generous Souls, Innovation, Insufficient Volume, Ivan Points, Krstic, Leadership, Nicholas Negroponte, Realistic Financial Plan, Reorganizations, Support Infrastructure, Talent, Technology, Term Sustainability, TrillionsToys that blend Beauty and Magic
Remember Pleo, the animatronic dinosaur toy designed to emulate the appearance and behavior of a week-old baby Camarasaurus. The creator, Caleb Chung is a very funny man, who interestingly is also the co-creator of the Furby. In this video, Caleb walks us through the intimate design routine and countless hours that went into conceptualizing, building and perfecting both Furby and Pleo. He tells us the philosophy is to blend art and science, “beauty and magic”… and wrap the whole package in a thick layer of business logic. We see his philosophy in all his “life-like creations” from Furby, which sold over 50 million units worldwide, generating over $1.2 billion in sales, to Pleo.
Look out for instances in this video where Chung quickly walks through toy successes and failures in the past. I think it requires a great sense of humor and self confidence to be able to discuss your past failures. On a related note, check out this cool blog post- “You Must Fail – Six lessons from Michael Jordon”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1799876063870442684 Tags: 50 Million, Appearance, Array, Art And Science, Art Magic, Business Logic, Caleb, Countless Hours, Design, Dinosaur Toy, Featured, Funny Man, Furby, Googlevideo, Innovation, Instances, Magic, Michael Jordon, Old Baby, Philosophy, Self Confidence, Sense Of Humor, Successes And Failures, Thick Layer, Toys
