Its a bit like doing health promotion in a war zone

The one laptop perchild programme (OLPC) is apparently 'not working'.
Providing deworming tablets at hugely lower costs can also be shown to have significant effects on school attendance and potentially also on income earning potentials in a population.
Not quite as sexy as a colourful laptop though.

An actor-network analysis might point to the laptop as suffering from faith in its technical determinism and forgetting that it needed to enroll human actors to also make it work. Not least of which is the telecos, internet charges were/are crippling. The laptop aimed to be provided as a one off charge US$100 per child and an initial charge in the first year of $1 for internet access....but then that vanishes and the costs come in, leading to more, rather than less, indebtedness.

For the OLPC project to succeed, it needs to accept that it's selling a $100 laptop with an $872 support plan, and find countries that can afford it as such.

says Jon Camfield

IT's all a bit sad really.
Pity the blogger condemning the OLPC campaign wasn't savvy enough to point to what needs to be done differently, 'cause things can always be different when the networks understood.