One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit association dedicated to research to develop a $100 laptop. Depending upon who you speak to it is “either soon-to-be-legendary vapourware or a shortcut to modern education for tens of millions of poor kids around the world” ($100 Laptop, Wired, August 2006).
Thomas L. Friedman, in “The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century,” talks about the world being flat, but that assumes there is access to trained resources anywhere. Bruce Sterling (Wired, August 2006) put it more concisely, “If there are two technologies that have shaped the life I lead today, they’re jets and nets.”
The $100 Laptop model potentially allows companies to tap into the developing world’s Long Tail both in the supply sense of allowing access to more trained staff, and the demand sense by providing access to new markets.
Applying the long tail concept to access talented and IT literate staff, created by the OLPC in developing countries, and if as some claim “regular full-time employment” is being replaced with temporary labor (See "The future of the global workplace: An interview with the CEO of Manpower,") then the ability to leverage temporary globalized labor will become an increasingly strategic concern for companies. There is already some evidence emerging that the currently accessible world is becoming “talent constrained,” even in the new markets of India and China. As a result, creating a long tail labor market in the developing world that could be exploited to provide a low-cost, granular and hence non-unionized labor pool could help companies continue to exploit the labor arbitrage approach to keeping costs down.
An alternate view is that the emergence of stateless IT literate communities poses a threat to the existing corporate entities who could all be Amazon-ed out of existence by a newly emerging competitor. How will existing companies be able to motivate and integrate such a talent pool and avoid this form of reverse colonization?
Additionally this model can be seen as an attempt to extend the low volume long tail market for IT products and services into the developing world. The commercial version of the $100 laptop could itself be seen as a means of tapping into a new long tail laptop market. The basic theory being that the sum of all of the small niche markets, that can be touched via a global network, is greater than the current monolithic markets. This can be illustrated by the success of companies like eBay, which provides a generalized marketplace rather than selling a specific product.
An alternate view would be that this program could create an expectation in the minds of members of this program that would then not be fulfilled in practice leading to increased dissatisfaction. Whilst the OLPC is definitely not a magic bullet for eliminating global poverty. if it provides access to education, health, technology, economic opportunity, and more, then a few children will be able pull themselves out of poverty with no other assistance. As such, it can be a tool for education and communication that can contribute to the aid programs where these laptops are distributed. However, as with any communication media, it depends on who controls it and what they use it for.
Speaking as an optimist, I would hope that this initiative will result in more of the world’s population being able to obtain better education. And that this will be a springboard for some out of poverty. As such I really am looking forward to seeing how this initiative plays out over the next few years.
