FAIR, an aid organization dedicated to the spread of ICT in developing countries, has accused the OLPC organization of misleading and exploiting poor countries with its $100 laptop. The aid organization claims that countries are “being misled into measures which shift the focus away from their real needs.”

By now many of us have heard of the One Laptop Per Child initiative, more commonly referred to as OLPC. The non-profit organization was initially created by faculty members of MIT’s Media Lab to design and distribute relatively inexpensive laptop computers to emerging markets and third-world countries. The organization’s primary aim is to “revolutionize” how children are educated today through its inexpensive laptops.

FAIR accuses the OLPC organization of manipulating poorer counties through a number of different methods. It believes the largest drawbacks of the laptops are high price, high technological risk, misleading marketing, and having the wrong target group.

“In OLPC's agreement with Libya … 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 program. This price represents a normal 10 year budget for a school in the world's 50 least developed countries (LDCs).”

Although the price of a single OLPC might seem inexpensive at first, the cost of a large number of units can easily add up. The price of the laptop has actually gone up significantly since it was first launched. Originally planned to be sold for $100, added features ran the price up to $150 and from there finally hit today’s $208 mark. In the Libya deal, the cost for each OLPC was calculated out of a memorandum of understanding to purchase 1.2 million computers, one server per school, and a team of technical advisors who would setup the infrastructure for $250 million. These added costs were able to effectively double the price of the laptop from the originally planned price to $208.

FAIR also accuses the OLPC project of misleading marketing. They claim that OLPC is not “giving enough information about the weaknesses and pitfalls of the new technology.” They went on to say that “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.”

FAIR was also critical of the OLPC’s modest technical specifications.

“OLPC cannot today be used as a replacement for a normal PC…..With its limited 512 Mb memory it is equally likely that OLPC could never be able to become a satisfactory work station.”

The current BTest-1 units only come with 128MB of RAM. The CPU is an AMD Geode GX-500 which is clocked at 366 MHz paired with an AMD CS5536 South Bridge chipset. For storage, the laptop uses 512 MB of flash RAM.

“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.”

FAIR believes that a much better method for bringing technology to poorer third-world counties is by recycling used PCs, which is what the organization already does. 80% of the equipment the organization receives is reused in its projects while less than 20% is recycled for their materials.

The OLPC organization seems to have already thought about this approach though, and have already posted its reasons for not using recycled computers in its FAQ.

“Finally, regarding recycled machines: if we estimate 100 million available used desktops, and each one requires only one hour of human attention to refurbish, reload, and handle, that is forty-five thousand work years. Thus, while we definitely encourage the recycling of used computers, it is not the solution for One Laptop per Child.”