Making a case for "One Laptop Per Farmer"

by Kevin Painting

The high expectations that greeted the launch of the One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC) are now being realised: witness the steady stream of stories in the press as the famed XO laptop is being introduced in many developing countries (see, for example, this excellent video from a school in Haiti).

In this blog posting I’d like to put the case for what we at CTA are calling the “One Laptop Per Farmer agenda” (OLPF) – which recognises the tremendous benefits that OLPC and allied technologies could bring to ACP farmers and the huge opportunities for outreach for development organisations such as CTA. (Let’s not forget that farmers were involved in testing prototypes of the XO laptop itself!). In making the case, I’d like to underline that it’s not the OLPC technology in isolation that will have such an impact but also a host of other developments that will strengthen the ICT infrastructure available locally, creating an environment in which the OLPC can flourish. Let’s have a look at three prominent developments in turn.

Wireless connectivity
The February issue of CTA’s ICT Update deals with Wi-Fi and other wireless networks such as Wimax - a wireless technology that can provide high speed broadband over relatively long distances. This is a fast moving and exciting field, so much so that at CTA we are considering setting up a blog just on this issue. For example, Technology Review reported recently that Intel have developed “long distance Wi-Fi” for distances over 90 km using specialised software in what they are calling a “Rural Connectivity Platform” (see this video for a technical explanation). The importance of these developments cannot be understated. Connectivity, always problematic in developing countries when relying on physical infrastructure such as copper wires and fibre-optic cables (themselves targets for theft and vandalism), can now be confidently addressed with wireless technologies. Let’s fast forward to the near future to see what this all means. While access to broadband Internet will be a pipe dream for many developing countries for some time to come (especially much of Africa), effective local connectivity will become a reality. Surely this will boost the development of locally maintained and shared information resources, supplemented with downloaded Internet resources and complementary media? It’s no wonder that the benefits of wireless technology were recognised early on in the WSIS process as evidenced by Kofi Annan’s numerous speeches and articles and it was prescient of OLPC to enable wireless connectivity as a cornerstone of the project.

Web to go
In a delicious irony, the Web2.0 paradigm to move the “desktop” from the PC to the Internet has created (for some) a host of seemingly old fashioned problems of connectivity which, of course, are the daily lot of many in developing countries. To wit, in a Web2.0 world, when all your programs and files are on the Internet, what do you do when you can’t connect to the Internet? There is much activity now to develop applications that work seamlessly in an on-line/off-line world that will be of enormous utility to developing countries where lack of access to the Internet is not an occasional nuisance but a daily reality. The big players have been very active here: Google with its Gears application, Adobe with Air, Microsoft with Silverlight. We can only look to developments here with heightened anticipation.

Mobile PCs
The XO laptop of the OPLC project is not the only development when it comes to light weight, robust, mobile computing. While the XO laptop scores on many fronts, there are moves to develop so-called Ultra mobile PCs which are something between a PDA and a laptop and very light indeed – often less than a kilogram. Perhaps the most famous is Apple’s MacBook Air (with a price an order of magnitude higher than the XO laptop!). With a more affordable price tag however is the Asus EEE which was on show recently at CeBIT 2008 in Hannover. One trend in these developments is to forego hard drives for flash memory: cutting down on weight, however, has a trade off with lower storage capacity. This is set to change with recent developments such as Samsung’s 128GB memory cards.

There is much more that could be said about these and other developments, but how do we stand with the idea for “one laptop per farmer”? I would argue that it places us in a very good position indeed. The history of technology in development is littered with many false turns, unrealistic aspirations and wishful thinking. However, I strongly feel in the current climate that something quite different and profound is happening. Thanks to the potential for improved local connectivity, farmers and farmers’ organisations can better collaborate, exchange experiences, share common resources – all without “24/7” access to the Internet. Given the greatly improved ICT infrastructure afforded by wireless technologies, the power of new computers such as the XO laptop, this is surely a case where possession of a simple laptop can reap benefits as much for ACP farmers (to increase productivity and competitiveness) as for a child in a school for education.

The final word should be given to the developers of the OLPC project itself (see this video). They cogently make the case that the technology is a tool in the service of higher goals (in this case education) and not simply an exercise in “learning to make better Powerpoints”. I think this is something we can all agree upon: it is the challenge to ensure that these ICT tools are employed to advance development goals rather than to be an end in themselves. The thoughtful application of these technologies will reap rich rewards.

Kevin Painting is Senior Programme Coordinator, ICTs at CTA.

Related information