I’m a French-speaking ethnographer and teacher from Montreal who has been working with Malians involved in hunters associations. Yes, I’m one of those outsiders who does research in/on/with Africa.
I was originally enthused by the OLPC project. I happen to share several of their goals and approaches. But I’ve grown increasingly worried about the way the project is being handled. To be perfectly honest, it feels as if the XO-1s are being forced on ministers of education in different part of the world with little thought given to the ways the laptops are integrated in local realities. Instead of cultural awareness, some dimensions of the project display an attitude of idealized “cultural neutrality” which, in fact, represents Africa (and “The Rest of the World”) as an amorphous blob of uneducated children. Some parts of this attitude are rather subtle but others aren’t, including statements made by participants in the project.
Like many others, I happen to think that some tools could make sense in some learning contexts. Personally, I happen to think that cellphones would be more appropriate than laptops in many parts of Africa. But I still wouldn’t want Nokia, Motorola, or Sony Ericsson to push a given cellphone model on African ministers of education, regardless of “location appropriateness” in terms of ruggedness and energy consumption. I cherish human diversity and, at this point, I don’t see the OLPC project as a way to benefit from human diversity.
In other words, I can relate with some of the stated missions of the original OLPC project but I have deep concerns about the way it is handled at this point in time.
The reason I think about this so much, these days, is that I’ve been trying out an OLPC XO-1 a friend has received through G1G1. I do agree with everyone who says that “regardless of the tool itself, children will find ways to do neat things with it.” Yet this specific device seems to have been designed with so many assumptions about the world that I think this specific device is the wrong one at the wrong time.
It does have some really neat features in terms of mesh networking, security, and power consumption in daylight. But, to be honest, it feels like an attempt to shove an inferior product on people who “should consider themselves lucky to get anything at all.”
While the original OLPC project was allegedly not about technology, the most tangible outcome is a device which seems overrated and oversold. At the same time, the project had valuable outcomes in intangibles like making people think about technology in diverse learning contexts.

What I see as the mistake in your thinking is that “assured continual development/upgrade/maintenance” mustn’t depend upon an external corporation or entity’s indefinite participation.

The OLPC XO, Classmate or any other device should depend more upon the proper training of host country nationals and the cheap availability of repair parts on a world market so that recipients can adopt the technology in a sustainable manner.

Otherwise, soon enough, you will have classrooms full of bright green paperweights.

(See my November blog entries on the OLPC for a longer discussion of this.)

My concern however is that with the limitations it appears to have against other low-cost laptops, it may be hindered from really becoming a big success? And also the fact that other laptops will have potential for futher development, coming out of companies such as Intel or Microsoft, whereas the OLPC does not have this assured continual development/upgrade/maintainance promise?

That said, it does have some very good points, and I don’t want to sound like I am saying it will fail, just that I’m not convinced either way, and will be interested to see what people make of it, like you said.

Whatever happens I think it is going to be an interesting learning curve for everyone.

Many people have declared the OLPC useless because it does not have this feature or that feature (or run Windows, etc).

This is not important! What is remarkable about many of the people I know in developing countries is that they will innovate once given the basics — look at cellphones, for example.

The OLPC has all the right basics, let’s just hope the proper distribution and training channels are established for it to become a successful overall project.

In terms of education, I don’t really want to get into a debate about that, because the issue with the OLPC and education in Africa is so broad and there are so many issues that we could go on forever!

I am not suggesting this machine be used in an office setup as a replacement for desktops! but outside it. Most users can even work from home.

PS. i work in IT, most of the time we do no more than push data (numbers) onto tables (kickoff a job which happens in the background on a remote server), read and send emails and surf the web.
I can envision an outreach AIDS worker visiting clients at home and giving them ARVs or other drugs using this. Same with an agricultural officer. Even police doing their patrols