[Its.an.education.project] Ivan's latest blog entry on OLPC

[info at olpc-peru.info]

Last... message to Ivan et al...

You say "Peru's first deployment module consisted of 40 thousand 
laptops...  ...A number of the target schools are in places requiring 
multiple modes of transportation to reach, and that are so remote that 
they're not even serviced by the postal service..."

Yes we have those places: 80,000 villages (from a total of 85,000) don't 
have communication with the "occidental" world.  They are not 
integrated, they are forgotten towns were the diet is based just on 
potatoes most of the year and, depending on the specific towns, from 20% 
to 50% of the new born babies will not reach the 12 years old mark.

"...Laptop delivery was going to be performed by untrusted vendors who 
are in a position to steal the machines en mass. There is no easy way to 
collect manifests of what actually got delivered, where, and to whom."

What? I have to disagree with this info.  Any place, any small village 
is very well known.  They are far away, there is no bus to reach that 
place, sometimes there is not a road for cars, but all of them are very 
well known.  They are isolated and forgotten but very well known.  Some 
examples:
a) Elections: every vote in the country is counted.  All the votes 
count.  All the smallest villages in Peru have election on the same day 
and in the same hours.  All results travel, by the most unusual ways, by 
river canoe sometimes (in the jungle), by two or three days sometimes.  
But we know very well how to reach those towns.  When I say "we" I mean 
the business companies, the army, the mining companies, the phone 
companies, the government, the church (both catholic and evangelic), the 
minister of health, the electricity companies (they travel around those 
forgotten towns with the huge energy towers... sometimes they install 
the big tower near a town but that town is not "big enough" or have 
"enough money" to pay for the energy that they can see travels around 
their lands.
b) Just one example: banks and money in the worst terrorist years that 
we have seen (80's and 90's).  All money from the remote cities needs to 
travel to the main banks in the capital city (Lima).  The money from 
small villages in the middle of the jungle or in the highest mountain 
travel in the trucks of two of the most important "money transport 
companies" that we have here ("ProSegur" is the name of one of them).  
Gold (we produce Gold in many remote areas)... gold comes in trucks from 
those remote sites.  All those trucks can bring all the XOs to all the 
places that you can imagine.  I imagine that these truck companies can 
be interested in transporting the XOs as a way to get a good image in 
front of the general public (social business responsibility... that 
could be a reason).  The army trucks can do the same: not one XO will be 
lost.
c) All the teachers are registered, even the ones in the forgotten 
remote villages.  All the school directors, regional educational 
directors, etc.

Any business person, with a minimum logistic experience, can find a 
solution for all your deployment problems.

You say... "but what the shit do I know about deployment?"

Well, maybe that is just PART of the explanation of your experience.  I 
ask myself what about all the peruvians that you have been in contact to 
build this deployment? No logistic experience? no business experience? 
No what?...  maybe you can find the answer by yourself.... someone has 
told you about /"..untrusted vendors..."/ and /"... steal the machines 
in mass"./.. and "./.. no easy ways to collect manifests of what got 
delivered... where and whom..."/.... all the people that has given you 
that kind of information is responsible of misleading you.  It is not 
your fault.  I am surprised, totally in shock.  Remenber WHO has told 
you these "facts".  I don't think they are ignorant, there must be 
political reasons or maybe some of them can have their own agenda (some 
political reasons and some personal agendas are not all the time 
adjusted to what we can expect, sometimes goes against the law!)

But, again, it is not your fault, you can not get these conclusions 
without the information that was given to you.

Best regards,

Javier Rodriguez
Lima, Peru


Ivan Krstić wrote:
> On May 13, 2008, at 9:46 PM, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
>> Just make sure you read all the way through before trying to
>> understand it. I needed to read it through twice as he is a very angry
>> person and his anger seems to go at a lot of targets..
>
> Do you feel that particular points were not properly supported or 
> explained in the essay?
>
> -- 
> Ivan Krstić <krstic at solarsail.hcs.harvard.edu> | http://radian.org
>
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