Classmate PC and One Laptop per Child Computer

with Godfrey Marange

For Africa’s entire rich natural resource and minerals base, there is the one most important but undervalued resource of them all, Human Capital. While this is a priceless commodity/resource depending on where you are standing, the amount of investment being channelled to it is still by far insufficient, I think.

For me to be able to highlight to you were I’m going with this and how technology plays a part in all this, I think I have to give the background of my thinking or understanding of the situation.

If you take an average African family and an average Western family and you analyse them on how each set their goals, you’ll find something very interesting. The motivational concerns of a developed country family are mostly centred around which place they can afford to go on holiday and how to live a satisfactory and fulfilling life, based on self actualisation goals. For an African family however, the decisions are made based on what is the most practical way to survive and mostly, the number one goal you'll find is how each family worries about how to send their children to school. The heads of African households will do anything to get an education for their children. Education in Africa is still viewed as the number one main ingredient for social and economic freedom. It is for this thinking that I think what Africa needs more than anything else is a vibrant educational system. This is where technology comes in and plays a role in grassroots levels towards human development and economic freedom.

In my opinion, an ideal technological solution to the African educational systems can be an unparalleled force that can see/help Africa to catch-up with the developed countries faster and see poverty alleviated in ways never thought of before.

For us then to decide how we can come up with these solutions, we need to look at what technology has done so far for the continent. I think not enough. Apart from some charity work involving the donations of IT resources, it doesn’t seem like anything major has been done. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against donations; I think they are very welcome, but they don’t seem to be the way to solve this problem. As we all know “give man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. This therefore stamps the opinion that what we need is an empowering solution not a social responsibility image building exercise; because this is only done to give companies a good name and is not done with Africa’s concerns as a priority.
Nickey Mannya, the Chief Geek wrote in a previous article about Intel’s Classmate PC and AMD’s XO One Laptop per Child Computer projects. These are low cost notebooks built for emerging markets with the focus on them being a way of trying to bring technology to the emerging markets at grass roots levels.

These low powered laptops will have flash memory instead of a Hard Disc Drive limiting power consuming motor driven parts, no optical (CD/DVD) media, no floppy and no fans. They will have a video camera, microphone, and Internet connection feature, a USB connection for other devices like printers and stuff and an operating system (O/S). The Intel Classmate PC will run Windows XP Embedded version 2002 with Service Pack and which is why it will be more expensive than the AMD version which will run Linux as its O/S. The AMD versions' expected cost around US$100 and the Intel one will be around US$400. Relatively these are very cheap solutions compared to how much people are paying for computers right now. A human powered recharging system is being considered for them in order to manage the issue of availability of electricity. Theft proof features are being implemented and the electronic book (e-book) feature will go a long way in alleviating book shortages.

The thing that makes this a good idea is that the solution is looking at the African situation and its being tailored to suit the environment. It does away with the redundant sophisticated features that will not find use at this moment in time. So if you look at these laptops and the environment they are being put in, they will be powerful tools for information through internet access and e-books. These laptops will provide children in the developing world with an opportunity to use other technology resources available such as e-mails, internet chat rooms, video conferencing, etc. This in turn will allow them to reach the global market and access the opportunities available such as scholarships and jobs that they qualify for, at a significantly less considerable cost. Now you can imagine what these opportunities can do for their families, communities and country. This is what I call empowering people for development and investing in the future and in people.


Yes the question of whether this is not another digital dumping exercise or a way of making money out of Africa will be raised. It is possible that this could be their goals. We are dealing with capitalist companies after all and they are all about making the dollar, no-matter what they say. I think if the right precautions are taken and proper policies set to govern these initiatives, we can also take advantages of such ventures and get a win– win situation for both sides. I’m not trying to get political but the onus is on African governments to set out policies that will protect their people from exploitation and make the whole deal as highly beneficial to their countries. I mean policing that African businesses get involved somewhere in the distribution channels. This can then create jobs and business opportunities for Africa. So if this idea flies and with competition bound to take place to get the best product on the market as you can see from the Intel vs. AMD race that’s there already, you can be guaranteed of better products in time.

At the end of the day, all I’m saying is, technology has to be given the priority it deserves especially from the governments. Technology as far as I’m concerned is the steroid of development and can give all these infrastructure development ideas the boost they need to achieve their objectives and it is not a banned substance.

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