Thursday, June 5, 2008

Group tackles global tech learning

By Brendan Lynch

 
Walter Bender, the former One Laptop Per Child president who last month founded the nonprofit Sugar Labs Foundation, is starting an academic consortium that would deal with the effects of introducing technology to developing countries.

Bender has been splitting his time between developing the Sugar open-source user interface and planning the consortium, tentatively named the Learning Learning Consortium. The group would deal with issues at the intersection of computer science, sociology, political science, economics and law, he said. For instance, when a child creates content on a machine like OLPC’s XO, who owns it, since all of its software is under an open source license? What are the economic tradeoffs of introducing technology to developing communities?

“They haven’t been answered yet,” Bender said. “And I’d love to stir the pot and get them answered.”

The consortium would be partly modeled on the open source software development community, which Bender said used powerful tools to get work done, such as having an Internet relay chat open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to address user problems.

“I don’t know that there’s someone on an IRC channel to discuss microeconomics 24/7,” he said. “But I’d like to see that.” 

Bender said he got the idea in Peru while deploying the XO there. Two colleges there have already committed to granting academic credit to students who volunteer in such projects as the XO rollout.

Bender said he has discussions scheduled with Harvard University and MIT officials and an unnamed university in Finland. He has already had talks with Ocean State colleges Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, and would like to ultimately have 100 universities from six continents signed up. Bender plans to have the consortium in place for the fall. Bender said non-governmental organizations, corporations and governments may also be interested in the group’s activities.

Andy Updegrove, a partner at Gesmer Updegrove LLP with specialization in consortia, said that while 100 universities sounded ambitious, it is possible. He also said such consortia often benefit from an “appearances game.” “The more people you have signed up, the more credible it becomes,” he said.