A major criticism of the One Laptop Per Child project is that it was a solution in search of a problem. Not that lack of computer literacy in developing countries is not a problem, but it is far from the most pressing problem in the poorest places. However, I think I spy a new opening for OLPC. Apparently a big reason why the shiny new vote tallying system in Kenya failed is that most of the voting stations (often primary schools) lacked electric sockets with which to power the laptops which were intended to record and then remit to the central system all the votes cast.
Step forward OLPC’s wind up laptop:
(Image from: http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/100_laptop_unveiled)
Hat tip: Peter B
Bottom Up Thinking 
Posted by hearabout on March 30, 2013 at 12:38 pm
I always wondered about the deeper sense of the OLPC initiative. Anyone who’s ever be in a “typical” school in rural Subsaharan Africa could have figured that most times there is no electricity. Next to a lack of toilets, books, transportation, teacher housing and teacher themselves (at least in rural Tanzania and Nigeria a huge problem).
Computer literacy seems to me the least of Africa’s education problems… #justsaying