The Social Impact of One Laptop per Child

Posted by Winnie Melda on October 24th, 2018

The Learning to Change the World: The Social Impact of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a book that was written by Kane, C., and Bender, W., Cornish, J., & Donahue. The book is an excellent example as well as the case study on the manner in which social entrepreneurs can be agents of changes in the education sector, offering a description of the challenges that the laptop program had in working in those countries that has ineffective as well as entrenched education systems. The assessment of the OLPC program makes it obvious that it was an ambition agenda encompassing the desire to offer more information as well as better education to the poorest in the world through the provision of inexpensive laptops. The book is simply not just a story of this amazing project but elaborates on the diverse lessons that can be learned by the social entrepreneurs. The book offers an excellent recounting of the organization’s offering the low costs computer in different developing nations.

By looking at the book, it is evident that it offers an excellent account of the situation in an interesting as well as easy to read the analysis of the situation. The delivery of the account is a manner that is easy to read and understand for even the individual with little knowledge of entrepreneurial course. The authors present a clear picture of the program and their mission which was in empowering the children in developing nations by enhancing their ability to learn. The philosophy that guided the program has originated from the MIT’s Media Lab asserting that it is imperative that education moves from the traditional passive mode of learning knowledge to one that is more constructivists. According to the authors, the desire by OLPC to promote the realization of the change in the world, they attempted to an affordable 0 laptop that had the capability to endure the harsh environmental conditions along with infrastructure challenges in the developing countries. Through the access gained by these students to the laptops, it would allow them to take control of their individual education ion means that were not common through the use the more traditional education models.

The authors managed to deliver a captivating story of the manner in which social impact, technology as well as entrepreneurship can be adopted together to enhance the promotion of global wellbeing. Assessing the ambitions that are presented in this book can only be classified to be breathtaking and overwhelming at the same time. Looking how the authors offer detailed accounts of the implementation processes as well as the lessons that have been learned serves as a major source of wisdom for the reader irrespective of their background.

The OLPC’s mission received significant comments according to the authors with some quarters criticizing the endeavor. The assertion that learning to change the world should not appear to a whole PR exercise as it offers detailed accounts of the successes as well as disappoints and at the same time effectively offering reactions to the criticism that has been put forward regarding the program over the years it has been implemented. The offers other than being an easy read offers great insights to the diverse individuals with the desire to design not for profits social ventures addressing the challenges that social entrepreneurs deal with along the way. By looking at the first section of the book, the authors undertake an excellent enumeration of the journey that the organization has taken to make the contributions it did.  The authors elaborate on the challenges that were faced in the designing of the OLPC program, developing the software to operate, establishing the suppliers as well as signing the customers. The offers an exceptional discussion of the challenges that these elements posed to the organization as well as the means that were employed in addressing the challenges, establishing what went well and what did not.

One of the issues that are considered very interesting in the book’s chapters is the assessment of the Sugar software platform development as it offered the students with several pieces of the basic software while also allowing them to look at the programming code running the software. It is evident that although the designing of the computers took the biggest space in the book, the sugar chapter offers a tracing of the platform designing as well as the reason it was conspired necessary for the success of the program considering several platforms were already in existence. According to the authors, the success seen in the sugar program is mainly as a result of the numerous open source programs in addition to the various students who worked on the creation of the different programs independently of any centralized control.

One of the issues I feel the book fell short in is the fact that it offers little evidence on the impact on the students although it is an issue that is constantly mentioned in the book. Additionally, the largest part of the book is in the development of successful technology organization that overcame several operational as well as strategic challenges. I feel that the authors should address the successful as well as the revolutionary organization that inspires change.

        References

Kane, C., Bender, W., Cornish, J., & Donahue, N. (2012). Learning to change the world: The social impact of One Laptop per Child. Macmillan.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in help writing nursing research paper if you need a similar paper you can place your order for customized papers.