(something worth a little fight)

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program is a project that aims to produce a rugged and portable learning device for less than $100 (that's about £50) and make it available to disadvantaged groups. The current price of the XO (the laptop in question) is a little higher being nearer £95 per device. Sadly the foundation is currently missing out on a significant number of ways to get the XO in the hands of those that need them most and that is buy using the needs of those of our society that need them almost as much.

If the £29.5m so far spent not getting anywhere with the Thanet Turner Contemporary Centre had been spent on laptops then Thanet would right now see 310,526 children (more than double the current total population of Thanet) with a tool that would give them a significant competitive advantage in the next six to twelve years as the oldest start to look towards a-levels and top universities. Ten to sixteen years from now we would have the most academically active and technologically literate children in the country. Not to bad for a district flagged as being an area of major disadvantage and social and economical deprivation.

I have commented before that education is a key to our future growth and just recently I observed that already there were things going on within Thanet that will help with that. Yes it might need some joined up thinking and the ability to care about what happens ten to twenty years from now but it is an investment that will be worth it. Worth it for our children and worth it for each and every one of us that lives and works in Thanet.

Who knows what we could have been doing twenty to thirty years from today? Perhaps we would be hosting a world symposium on the use of technology in business. Currently we will be lucky if we can work enough hours to pay the taxes that will cover the £2.2m year on year losses the Turner Centre is rumoured to cost.

What can we do now though?

1. We can let our two local Members of Parliament know that we are ticked off that the government has not put in a bid on the XO given it's commitment both to reducing third world poverty and two illuminating areas of significant deprivation. It does not take a genius to work out that an order of a mere billion laptops split evenly between ourselves and a Third World location of their choice would not only improve both countries but would also raise a generation that actually know how to handle a PC and are not so likely to loose quite so much data each week.

2. We can let our local money spenders both at the District level and the more well equipped County level know that actually we would like to see the money paid by Thanet Council to Kent County Council spent on equipping our children so they can over come the economic barriers to getting a good education. After all both groups seem happy to spend money dropping huge chunks of concrete into the sea to no actual gain so why should they not be opposed to doing some good for our future with this money they seem to have spare.

3. We can by-pass the less than efficient governance of our locality and write and email to foundation directly pushing for a "give one - get one" promotion that is open to the UK. While we are at it would could try and make them understand that the need is as great in Third World Thanet as it is in the more recognised areas of deprivation. A change of policy that sees this laptop sold to schools in an ongoing "Give one - Get one" still prices the devices at under £200 all in where as the current cost of a school computer can easy get above £750 per unit. In fact give two and get one (£285 per laptop) would still make them excellent cost saver in terms of equipment investment.

4. We can also address the agencies trying to make a change in the areas of employment, educational motivation and drug rehab. For example a if the Job Centre were to run a policy of get a (permanent) job and get a laptop both for yourself and for a third world child I think we might see a greater motivation n an area where it is all too easy to give up and live from one giro cheque to the next without any personal pride or future. I know I was there once. Likewise in areas where we see kids dropping out of school to early or people struggling to get clean the offer of a free or heavily subsidised laptop for yourself and a laptop for someone worse off than oneself could prove to be a significant motivator: "By [staying in school/getting clean/finding a job] I helped a kid in Africa have a future!"

I have no doubt that there are far more groups whose interest in their own aims could be tied up with Thanet's needs and the needs of third world kiddies to create a solution for us all. The question is not do they exist or even will they help but can we alert them to the possibilities. By doing so we open the gateway to these tools being placed in the hands of our children. They might end up in the hands of others long before that but that does not matter - if by helping our children to do well we can help others to get ahead in life then we are all winners.