My friend Jan, who will go to Gengis’ land in January to distribute the One Laptop per Child sends me the note below. Funny that a generation of traditionnal nomads will transform into neo-nomads via a green looking device :) Well… they already are modern… check this picture (sorry for the reflection :( of an image taken by Titouan Lamazou when in Mongolia… (In the background in very small, you would notice a Mongolian yurt). A modern nomad in Mongolia…

From now through November 26, the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-profit association is offering a unique opportunity to help provide connected laptops to the poorest and most remote children of the world, while receiving an XO laptop for your own child. Please look at www.laptopgiving.org. You have the opportunity to Give One Get One for $399, or give many, if you wish. By popular demand, there are ways to direct 60 or more to your favorite school, as well.

OLPC is an education project, not a laptop project. Children are a mission, not a market. After 30+ years of research at the MIT Media Lab, based on Seymour Papert’s theories of constructionism, we have had three years to pilot in primary schools around the world, in Cambodia, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Peru and other places. The XO laptop is now in mass production. It was reviewed recently by the NY Times. If you have a chance, I urge you glance at David Pogue’s video as well.

Our goal is to reach the poorest and most remote children, in countries where as many as 50% do not even go to school. The long term purpose is to eliminate poverty.

The reason you are getting this e-mail is that at some time over the past ten years, you received or sent an e-mail from or to me, or were on a cc list. I know, this is a kind of spam and, in some cases the recipient will be somebody I wrote this week, in other cases the recipient may not even be alive. I did not try to edit the 30,000+ e-mail addresses. But more than anything, whether you join Give One Get One or not, please tell your friends and family. This really could change the world.

PS: If you participate in Give One Get One, your donation comes with one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States (a $350 value). Details are on www.laptopgiving.org.

Article in the Economist, Nov. 15, 2007: A bank in Every Pocket (p. 18 in the print edition).

An excerpt:

These “branchless” schemes typically allow customers to deposit and withdraw cash through a mobile operator’s airtime-resale agents, and send money to other people via text messages that can be exchanged for cash by visiting an agent. Workers can then be paid by phone; taxi-drivers and delivery-drivers can accept payments without carrying cash around; money can be easily sent to friends and family. A popular use is to deposit money before making a long journey and then withdraw it at the other end, which is safer than carrying lots of cash.

The article’s background:

The growth in the number of mobile-phone users is nothing short of spectacular. In 1990 there were just over 11m of them worldwide. Today almost 2.5 billion consumers own mobile phones. Some see their spread as the key to bridging the digital divide and boosting development in poor countries. Marketers hail the mobile phone as advertising’s promised land. They are also changing politics, generally for the better.

Competition among telecoms operators and handset-makers is fierce. In Europe, the former racked up huge debts around the turn of the millennium while bidding wildly for third-generation (3G) network licenses. To their disappointment, consumer interest in 3G has been lacklustre. Worse yet, whizzy new services (like mobile TV and wireless broadband) are likely to be carried on other networks in future. Still, the state of play is fluid and speculation remains fevered as to where the phone will go next.

Still can’t get how you can type and drive at the same time… Thank you N.B. for the link… But here is how one can cope with mobility when you have a chauffeur… A classic… “what I am going to do while in transit?” Is that so boring to do nothing? Check this Car computer System.

Via Archinect. Antoine Picon, was lecturing and debating!

LUNDI 12 NOVEMBRE 19:00 Debat animé / Panel Discussion par Jacques Boulet, Jean-Pierre Le Dantec, Philippe Duboy, Françoise Fromonot, Antoine Picon, et Bernard Vaudeville.

MARDI 13 NOVEMBRE 9:00 Antoine Picon Harvard University, ” Vers une aura numérique ? ”

Enjoy all the rest…