Youth Citizen Journalism and the $100 Laptop

Went to a fascinating talk the other night that put me in mind of how powerful a tool citizen journalism might be if it could be put in the hands the millions of young people around the globe. Unrealistic? Not if the plan for a $100 laptop as part of something called the One Laptop Per Child project is realized over the next few years.

The prototype for just that is to be unveiled next Wednesday, Nov. 16, at a major international telecom event in Tunis. Nicholas Negroponte, the legendary founding chairman of MIT’s Media Lab, is the major force behind the project. And at a talk in New York last week sponsored by the Carnegie Council, he outlined the effort, which has been written about quite a bit in recent months here and here, as well as on Ethan Zuckerman's blog.

Without reiterating all the details, the idea is to design a laptop inexpensive enough that governments around the country will be hard put not to buy one for every schoolkid. And it looks like they’ve accomplished just that, with innovations in power supply (windup power), display, etc. Negroponte hopes to sign on 5-6 big countries soon, and have as many as 100 million-150 million machines in place by year two.

What was running through my mind as I listened to Negroponte's impassioned discussion of the project was the unbelievable mental energy unleashed on the net should even a fraction of the globe’s one billion children suddenly have a way to share with the rest of us what’s happening in their lives – just imagine the youth journalism, the localized citizen news from every corner of the world. That’s a force that once freed could never be bottled again.

One good test of the potential for youth citizen journalism is to see what’s happened in Maine, which already has a One Laptop Per Child program, and in Massachusetts, where Gov. Mitt Romney introduced a bill to do the same earlier this fall.

Comments

[Amy Gahran]

Adam, I think you're on to something here... With cheap laptops, fairly ubiquitous net access, and cell phones with net access and the ability to store and play MP3s, I think citizen journalists would have a field day creating text, audio, and video.

- Amy Gahran

[Fletcher]

Young people are already creating a media movement that extends far beyond what the majority of adults- including teachers and parents- realize. Learn more at http://www.freechild.org/youthmedia.htm