Apropriate Development

I was pointed today to a story on the appropriateness of a small Indian village having its own web site. The town doesn't have an internet connection yet, but it has a web site of its own. Read the story written by Shailaja Neelakantan at http://gigaom.com/2006/08/14/indian-villages-internet-and-crazy-headline.... Maybe the town doesn't have an internet connection, and maybe the people of the community have aspirations for the web site and use of the internet far beyond what they are able to do now, but aren't aspirations the beginning of development. And as I have seen, often a web site isn't for the person writing the web site about the little village, but for the thinker, the traveler, the researcher, the person interested in what's going on back in his little village. Just because it doesn't make sense to you, doesn't mean it doesn't make sense.

Here's another by Om Malik http://gigaom.com/2007/05/21/one-laptop-per-child-the-cry-babies/#more-9.... Maybe clean water and food is more important than the laptop that may be handed out to them, but like one commenter said, not all of Africa is the same and not all areas are completely impoverished. Many people also forget about the hope that giving someone something that they have never seen and no one else has brings. I know that giving someone that has very little of the basic necessities something like a laptop might seem unreasonable, but when it may inspire that child or that family to better themselves, attend school, and even have a little more pride in themselves so that they have the energy to farm their land or find a job, then maybe giving something that isn't quite appropriate in your eyes, is appropriate in theirs. And Om, you don't need a fan or even electricity to go to school, and you don't need electricity for those One Child laptops either. Take a chance.