One laptop per child

My laptop is emitting death rattle noises. It may be time to give it a good funeral. This got me thinking about the One Laptop Per Child initiative that the Nigerian govt in its infinite wisdom has adopted, and the Indian govt, in contrast, as turned its back on and farted. I was trying to work out why the esteemed Mr Negroponte of the even more esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology would have thought it a good idea. One person suggested, 'Well, he has to make some money.' I would have thought that he already earnt a good packet and probably lives in the nicest part of Cambridge/Boston. Another suggested, 'Its to ensure the youth are computer literate.' This sounds to me to be close to what must have been the original intention. But surely, there are better, more sustainable ways of ensuring widespread computer literacy in the developing world? In the Nigerian context, OLPC can only mean one thing: contracts and yahoo yahoo nefariousness. Who exactly will receive a laptop, and on the basis of exactly what criteria? We can rely on Dis Day and all the other forms of toilet paper not to ask this question.