Second Hand Computers Criticism
BBC NEWS | Africa | Computers to Africa scheme criticised
BBC News reports on a recent report from the The UK Centre of International Education, criticising Western Companies efforts to ship 2nd hand computers to Africa.
It has been a very very costly mistake," Bildad Kagai from the Open Source Foundation for Africa told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.
"The issue is that we did not consider the consequent costs that come with the donation of computers."
Although I have little concrete experience in trhese matters, it has been one of our firm stand-points while working on Digital Divide issues, that such 2nd hand programs were NOT what we were interested in. I could add to the above criticism, that a typical 3-5 year old computer, while being perfectly adequate for running basic office applications, uses up to 10 times as much power as a modern computer down-scaled for the same purposes. And power is one of those things that are seriously scarce in many parts of the developing world.
In other words, what the developing world needs is hardware and software, designed and scaled explicitly to solve local problems, and contend with local issues.
