A couple of months ago, I got captivated by the notion of the $100 laptop currently being developed by MIT's famed Media Lab headed by legendary technologist Nicholas Negroponte. He's a guy I started to track after reading his book Being Digital when I was a way wet behind the ears techie wannabe nearly two decades ago. Today at Pop!Tech, Negroponte outlined the details of the device and its intended effect on the developing world.
He pointed out that personal computer costs breakdown into essentially three categories: sales, marketing, distribution, and profit -- 50%, display -- 25%, and everything else -- 25% (75% of which is used just to store and maintain the operating system). By focusing on a low-cost, low-power display, a self-generated power supply, and emphasizing connectivity and an open source architecture, the device could potentially connect 100 million people a year (if Negroponte has his way) to the rest of the world. A workable model is to be presented to the U.N. in November with production prototypes due early next year.
However, Negroponte failed to address at least a couple of important issues. First, he proposes that all of the "know it exists, get it to those who want it" costs (i.e., sales, marketing, distribution) will be eliminated. One way or another, someone will have to pick up the tab here, particularly for logistics and support ... hope it's not just shifting the accounting of costs from the "laptop" account to the "U.N. (or some other nonprofit)" account. Second, and a big question in my mind, is how much of the laptop is recyclable, reusable, or remanufacturable? Does the world really need to produce 100 million a year more of anything that doesn't have a pre-defined, designed-in sustainability cycle, particularly in the developing world where sanitation infrastructures are primitive at best?
Just goes to show that even a "wow!" idea is just the first step in the lifecycle of a social innovation with impact.
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