Last week in Amsterdam I had a very interesting conversation about the famous project by Sugata Mitra called Hole in the Wall.
Dr Mitra also compares it to a well, as people go and throw things (informations) in, or go and pull information out, when they need them.

The whole point is that our western conception of “personal computer” is totally socio-centric, and that other cultures, more depending on oral culture, on surviving micro-social structures like the village or the tribe, can benefit from a different approach to computer technology.
And while in the west you see Windows, Macintosh and Linux, maybe it could be possible to differentiate even more
Interesting how the only representative of a developing country in the group (thus maybe the only one with the right to have a strong opinion about it) warmly refused the idea of Negroponte 100$ laptop, as it would keep its users still out of the “mainstream” (that is, Western) internet culture.
I wonder how these cultural differences can be used to improve transmedial storytelling techniques, especially when the less technologically developed have a much larger wealth of oral storytelling tradition.

Anyway, if you feel like contributing, and also don’t like Negroponte’s $100 laptop, you can donate your (old) computer through Computer Aid