I’m gonna be on National Public Radio tonight!

2007 > America

Wayan Vota, an OLPC XO $100 laptop expert – who knew?!

olpc xo
OLPC Chlidren’s Machine XO
negroponte olpc
Nicholas Negroponte of OLPC
That’s right, I’m going to be on National Public Radio talking about a $100 dollar laptop, tonight, Wednesday Feb21 @ 7pm. (station list)

Think about it, a $100 dollar laptop. Wouldn’t that be great! You could buy one for everyone you know. Better yet, what about a $100 laptop designed for students?

Imagine a classroom full of children, faces aglow with laptop screens, all learning at Internet speeds; the next Bill Gates, the next Jerry Yang, the next Sergey Brin. Now imagine all three in the developing world, better known for abject poverty than power computing.

That is the dream of Nicholas Negroponte, a MIT professor and technology futurist, as well as a dream of many in the development community. In a distinct difference, Mr. Negroponte has run with his dream and now his nonprofit, One Laptop Per Child is designing an appropriate-technology laptop, the Children’s Machine XO.

Originally priced at $100 dollars per laptop, now $150 and climbing, the technology behind the computer is amazing. But as Dr. Negroponte often reminds us, this is an education project, not a technology project, and he believes that he can revolutionize education through Constructivism – the laptop being sole tool required to achieve that goal.

As a technology professional, with a deep love for the developing world, I’ve followed OLPC in daily detail on my other website: One Laptop Per Child News where sometimes I am a fanboy and other times I scream in frustration, schizophrenic in my support.

Tonight National Public Radio will discuss this love-worry spectrum of One Laptop Per Child on “Open Source with Christopher Lydon” and I will be one of the guest speakers. That’s right, I’m going to be on NPR!

Listen in – this is your chance to give a thought to one of my passions, development using information and communication technology on my other Internet passion: blogging on OLPC News.

Radio Open Source streams live tonight at 7 PM EST:

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Category: America

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15 Comments on “I’m gonna be on National Public Radio tonight!”

  1. I digged your One laptop per child site, and I provided your info to some ultra computer loving folks at MacWorld!

    So stoked, I shall be listening to NPR when I get off work.

    Congrats!
    p.s: when can SF expect you again?
    .. oh yeah I love diggnation a lot.

  2. oooooh, good for you! you go, boy! i won’t be around to hear it so keep a recording for me!!

  6. very cool that you were on NPR! too bad i didn’t see your message until 9:45pm. ah well, i’m sure you were mahvehlous, dahling. i’ll try to figure out how to hear it online.

  7. I’ve been following OLPC even when it was called the $100 Laptop. It’s unfortunate the price has gone up rather than down. With electronics the normal pattern is for the price to drop off. But what can you do…

    And, who is Sergey Bergin? Is that the college roommate of Sergey Brin of Google 🙂

  8. Doah! How could I miss-spell the name of a techno-God? Thanks for the catch.

  9. In his introduction of you,Lydon said “Wayan Vota, was
    the director of Geekcorps.” Did he misspeak using the
    word WAS?

  10. Relax, Mom, He mis-spoke. I am still very much the Director of IESC Geekcorps.

  11. Hi Wayan!

    Hey, that’s so funny because my best friend Robin is a producer on that show. I’ve told her a bunch of times that she should do a show about Geekcorps, though I don’t know whether she was behind tonight’s show.

  12. This was, IMHO, one of the most thoughtful discussions on Radio Open Source in quite a while. Let’s hope they do, in fact, reinvite you to talk about Geekcorps specifically.

  13. Hey Wayan, SJ Klein is speaking at GDC this week here in San Francisco. I’ll be attending as online press – I might make his keynote speech, we’ll see. Congrats on the NPR session!

  14. Im so sad I missed both of your SF return. I hope to meet you and your lady sooner than later. The year is tough, and I sleep less every week, but I think I will make some of those dreams reality before the summer ends.

    Oh yeah, as well as I am surrounded by UI lovers, thought I’d put a linke for the one for 1 laptop Per Child. I assume you have this link, it’s more for anyone who ends up reading my comment 🙂 http://blog.pentagram.com/archives/2006/12/new_work_one_laptop_per_child.php