Nicholas Negroponte in Science Week

2008/11/12 Carton Virto, Eider - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Hardwarea
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Nicholas Negroponte, director of MIT Medialabe, gave the opening lecture of the science week. Presented the project One laptop per chil.

Negroponte is one of the gurus of computer science and technology for many years, but outside it has also become popular through the One Laptop Per Child project. The intentions of the project are not negligible. These are children from developing countries who want to put in the hands of each of them a laptop as one of the ways to advance and reduce inequalities between countries.

The promoters of the One Laptop Per Child project believe that in this process information and communication technologies and the Internet are an important component, so they created and launched OX, a small, cheap and very practical laptop, specially designed and designed for schoolchildren from countries known as the third world.

The project has suffered numerous vicissitudes, has received criticism and praise, thrusts and obstacles, but has advanced and, despite being slower than expected, have already distributed hundreds of thousands of computers. In his speech, last Monday, he mentioned that they produce 100,000 copies a month and it seems that the broken road will not turn back.

In addition, the area of influence of the project has not been limited to children of the development pathways. Beyond the objectives of the One Laptop Per Child project, OX has also shaken the computer market and the philosophy of small and cheap laptops has significantly influenced the producers of laptops that sell us. In a short time, devices have appeared on the market that do not account for half of what had come so far, both in size and price. And of course, they are getting very welcome.

Students in the Tent of Donostia.

We are in the Science and Technology Week and I believe that the One Laptop Per Child project reflects well the transformative capacity of science and technology. They compare healthy education with integration in the fifth principle of the project, because it protects from ignorance and intolerance. The phrase has been very decorated and perhaps a little proud, but it does not lack reason, and as part of that healthy education corresponds to science and technology, I invite you to participate in this week's activities.

You are still in time, you just have to go through the tent installed in Bilbao, San Sebastian and Vitoria-Gasteiz to see firsthand what is researched at the University of the Basque Country; or to participate in the workshops of KutxaEspacio de la Ciencia and Cristina Enea; or to listen to the talks that will take place in the three capitals; or to discover what is scientific cinema; Enter, choose, animate and from 16 do not leave. We wait in the tent of Donostia.

Published in Berria