High price In OLPC’s agreement with Libya, for example, one OLPC with Internet and support costs USD 208 per schoolchild. A normal school with 500-1,000 students must thus invest USD 100,000 to 200,000 to join the OLPC programme. This price represents a normal 10 year budget for a school in the world’s 50 least developed countries (LDCs). In addition there are the costs of Internet subscription, training, operation, infrastructure and responsible handling of EE waste. A PC-lab of new Pentium 4 computers in each school would cost a tenth of the OLPC-programme and is today the preferred solution in model countries like Norway, Sweden and the USA.

High technological risk OLPC cannot today be used as a replacement for a normal PC. All software to be used by OLPC must be tailored to the new technology and with today’s deficiencies that’s a big job. For example, OLPC does not even offer a simple spreadsheet. Theoretically it might be possible for OLPC to be made satisfactorily compatible with PC (WIN/LIN/MAC), but it would take many years of software development to achieve this. With its limited 512 Mb memory it is equally likely that OLPC could never be able to become a satisfactory work station.

Misleading marketing As a normal commercial company OLPC is heavily marketing its product’s advantages without giving enough information about the weaknesses and pitfalls of the new technology. Attention is being directed away from the gaping deficiencies and the project’s high risk and OLPC is being marketed as a ”100 dollar laptop”, when it really costs over USD 200.- plus other substantial investment costs.

Wrong target group The worst part of OLPC’s marketing is that it is talking about an incorrect market group, twice what actually exists. OLPC says its target group is aged 6-18 years, when in reality it is 6-12. Negroponte himself has admitted that OLPC today is a toy and as it doesn’t offer the simplest kind of spreadsheet at the expense of game buttons etc. it can hardly cover the needs of the 12-18 age group. The reason for this incorrect, expanded target group is that Negroponte has missed the market. Children in the 6-12 age group don’t need PC access in the way older children and young people do and therefore no such market exists today. Negroponte is trying to create a new market for OLPC. We fear that the authorities in many poor countries will be misled into believing that investing in OLPC could cover the ICT needs of the 12-18 age group. This could be fatal for a country which would then be unable for many years to make new investments in ICT for secondary schools, in which PC labs are needed to prepare students for modern working life or further education.

MIT and OLPC unethical Three years ago Negroponte publicly announced that he would make a video projector for a hundred dollars, although subsequent events proved that he could not. If there is only a fifty-fifty chance of OLPC succeeding, we believe it is irresponsible and unethical for MIT and OLPC to recommend the project to LDCs as aggressively as they are doing.

Every year in the west we destroy tens of millions of PCs which are far better than OLPC and which would cost not much more than a tenth of OLPC to put to use in developing countries. This is established technology which can run the latest software and get the recipients up to western levels of IT technology without delays. In the present circumstances this is a far better alternative. For western organisations such as MIT, OLPC and their sub-contractors to benefit by transferring expensive and risky technology to the world’s poorest countries, without any documented need for it, looks like exploitation to those of us who are really committed to global aid work.

More information: http://www.fairinternational.org

Contact information: Knut Foseide, President Tel: +47 23 12 21 05 Fax: +47 23 12 21 01 Mob: +47 90 19 80 10 E-mail: knut@fair.no

Vegard Munthe, Head of International Operations Mob: +47 47 86 08 83 E-mail: vegard@fair.no FAIR (www.fairinternational.org) is the only humanitarian organisation in Scandinavia which is working towards the spread of ICT in developing countries. The organisation transfers technology and knowledge from Scandinavia to the school and health sectors in the world’s poorest countries. All products and services are donated as gifts and free of charge to the recipients. FAIR’s users are hundreds of thousands of students in hundreds of schools in 15 of the world’s poorest countries. FAIR is also Norway’s leader in the recycling of ICT; over 80% of all the equipment we receive is reused in our projects, whilst less than 20% of the equipment is recycled for its constituent materials in the traditional way. All ICT equipment we transfer to our aid projects is eventually returned to Norway and recycled at approved waste reception facilities when the equipment is scrapped in the recipient country. FAIR is financed by NORAD, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UNESCO and the following 55 Norwegian and Swedish companies: A-Pressen, Allkopi, Amnesty Norge, Cowi, Creditinform, Den Norske Legeforening, Det Kgl. selskap for Norges Vel, Det Norske Arbeiderparti, Drømtorp VGS, EL & IT Forbundet, Fast Search & Transfer, Fellesforbundet, Flytoget, FO, Forbrukerrådet, Fredrikstad kommune, GE Money Bank, Glava, GRIP, Handel og Kontor, Heidenreich, Höegh Autoliners, Husbanken, JCDecaux, Kripos, LHL, Lindorff, LO - Landsorganisasjonen i Norge, Multiconsult, Nasjonalt folkehelseinstitutt, Næringsakademiet, Norconsult, Norges Fotballforbund, Norsas, Norsk Industri, Norsk Tjenestemannslag, Norwegian, SAS, Statens forurensningstilsyn, Sørmarka AS - LO kurs og konfereansesenter, Star Tour, Stavanger Aftenblad, Stavanger Kommune, Stiftelsen Norsk Luftambulanse, Storebrand, Strand og Grindahl, SV, Sykehuset i Vestfold, Technor, Tellus Foundation, Universitetet for miljø- og biovitenskap, Utlendingsnemnda, VPS, Wallenius Wilhelmsen and WWF. Organisation’s name: FAIR International

Established: 2002

Number of employees: 16

Vision: FAIR’s vision is to position itself as a leading global ICT supplier in the field of cost effective computer networks and communications solutions. FAIR’s goal is to become the world’s foremost organisation in the work of reducing the information gap between north and south.

Management: Knut Foseide is President of FAIR International. Foseide is the founder of FAIR and the computer security company SafetyCable AS. FAIR’s aid work is led by Vegard Munthe, Head of International Operations, who is co-founder of FAIR and the software company Copyleft Software AS.

Products and services: FAIR offer a holistic approach to the transfer of technology and knowledge between the north and the south, including hardware, software, installation, training, support, maintanance, software development, take-back system for EE-waste, advisory and last but not least – financing. Financing means that FAIR offer a financial model where a combination of the government, companies and private persons in the country of origin cover all the costs for the transfer of technology and competence to the recipient country in the south. The reipients are not charged for FAIRs products and services.