All antics aside, whether or not these products prevail, it seems that intentional or not, OLPC will be closing a gap between those who are accustomed to technology and those who are not. And in the wake of increasing disparity between the salaries based based on technical skills, this familiarity may prove important.

Whether these kids learn extensively through the use of OLPC, having hands on experience may help these kids in more areas than one.

What makes me skeptical about the approach taken by the OLPC project is that it uses exactly the opposite approach. If OLPC used best practices in both software development and economic development, they would have done a small scale pilot where they could get quick feedback and tweek their program until they got it right. Only, after they had a program that worked on a small scale would they try to scale up.

Instead they continue to do things that almost assure failure. Just as the BIG PLAN rarely works in software development (see Windows) it also rarely works in economic development.

Unfortunatley, the people who will be picking up the tab if this plan fails are not MIT or the rich world. Instead it will be the poor countries who are being encouraged to go into debt to pay for this unproven project.

When it comes to poor countries there is none that is more tech savy than India. It doesn’t say much for this project that India decided not to participate.

I recognize that the Internet and a computer can open up a completely new world and a new way of learning, one that is independent of traditional methods.

But a computer also takes children away from very elemental learning that humans have been doing for years. Things like how to imagine, how to be with oneself in silence, how to interact with others and be part of a strong social community. I sadly envision a schoolroom full of kids totally plugged in, and I suspect much of their time will be doing *other* things besides learning.

Perhaps the OLPC folks are aware of this. But if history of Mr. Negroponte and his lab at MIT are any indication, to me they have a little too high view of technology, are a little too enamored of it.

Education, particularly for women, has almost a direct correlation on the quality of life in a country, and computers and the Internet could make this possible for children who might not otherwise have this opportunity. But if it’s not carefully balanced with the more ancient teachers of nature, community and some form of spirituality — things that teach emotional intelligence — then I think it could likely do more harm than good.

Philosophically, I think this is as much about the tumbling cost of entry to the information age, as it is about anything else. I also believe this is as much about information flows as education, as I have written elsewhere some countries would benefit from getting information from the people to the state, and in some it is the other way around.

As a final quick point, I have fallen into the trap of believing that “emerging” means “behind” when it comes to developing countries, whereas in fact it can mean being in a position that is not held back by legacy thinking or technology. Given the increasing focus on the individual, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the OLPC became a mechanism to leapfrog other, more established facilities in other countries. Given that many of the world’s greatest innovations come from just a handful of people working closely together, there’s 6 billion points of potential out there and nobody has a monopoly on the future.

Best yet, we even predicted many of yesterday’s announcements – much to our disappointment.