The $100 computer

Two IT industry heavyweights are vying for Third World computer markets. On the one hand there is Nicholas Negroponte, an IT guru whose nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child is trying to develop a children’s computer – the XO is designed to sell for $100 by the end of 2008.

photoNegroponte shows a prototype of his $100 computer at Davos 2007

In the other corner there is Craig Barrett ex-chairman of Intel who is busily developing a similar low-cost computer. The two are trading in head-to-head competition. Negroponte positions himself as the good guy.

“Craig and I sometimes argue, and he called our thing a ‘gadget,’ ” Mr. Negroponte said, referring to the XO. “I’m glad to see he’s got his own gadget now. Craig has to look at this as a market, and I look at this as a mission.”

This combative stance is doing little to forge a common strategy that helps bring computer technology to advance economic and educational development. I suppose that it does give choice.

These high-level fancy technology projects always seem a bit pie in the sky to me. I’m inclined to leave them to someone else and to focus my own energy on what can be achieved here and now – like the School of St Jude which is one of the best schools in Northern Tanzania. It provides free education (no extra charges, the school even provides lunches, uniforms and bus transport) for bright children from the poorest families.

Computer lesson at School of St Jude

The Bill + Melinda Gates Foundation started out with a primary focus on the long term goal of finding a vaccine for malaria and funded several major medical research projects. However, in response to criticism that this long-term approach neglected the immediate problem, the Foundation has directed some funds to more immediate project. A $35 million grant to Zambia to fund nets, existing drugs, and insecticide is expected to reduce malaria mortality by 75% in the next five years.

Little people like us can work on the immediate needs – our small dollars can achieve thousands of small benefits to millions of individuals. The big guys like governments and billionaires can work on long-term projects as well as the immediate ones.

In the time it takes to develop a radically cheap computer, get it made, sell it to poor countries and get it into classrooms (many of which don’t have electricity) a whole generation of children will have passed through the computer rooms at the School of St Jude.

Peter Singer – Professor of Ethics

Peter Singer, an Australian, and the professor of ethics at Princeton looks at the ethics of philanthropy in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Peter Singer, Professor of Ethics at Princeton

He asks how our beliefs about the value of human life square with our actions in a world in which more than a billion people live at a level of affluence never before known, while roughly a billion others struggle to survive on the purchasing-power equivalent of less than $US1 a day.
He applauds the actions of the world’s richest people, Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet in pledging more than $US67 billion directed towards the world’s poorest.

Singer then analyses the incomes of the richest Americans – the top 0.01%, the top 0.05%, the top 1% and the top 10%.

He figures that the 14,400 people in the top 0.01% who earn an average of $US12.8 million could give a quarter of their income without hurting. The next categories are asked to give 20%, 15% and 10%. On his figures, this philanthropy would yield $US404 billion.

Extending this scheme worldwide would provide $US808 billion annually for development aid. That's more than six times what the task force chaired by Jeremy Sachs estimated would be required for 2006 in order to be on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

Of course, it is very easy to do this kind of armchair calculation; the difficulty lies in persuading the mega-rich to share their wealth. The fine leadership of Gates and Buffet has defined the first decade of the 21st century as a new "golden age of philanthropy", but it won't appeal to most rich people.

The effort to bring our actions in line with our values is an ongoing personal challenge for most of us. If you value human life and believe that equality is an important principle, you can act to support these principles by helping the School of St Jude to Fight Poverty through Education.

The school is one of those energetic, well-run and successful projects that are making a difference to hundreds of lives. Your donation, large or small, will be well-used.