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Hello, I am Jordi and I would like to present Project Labdoo through a real life story
This story takes place in Malawi
William was a kid who liked to read very much
At age of 14 he dropped out of school because his parents couldn’t afford to pay for it
As a result William had to spend his days at home helping out his parents
But whenever he could, he would ride his bicycle to the library to go read
In one of his trips to the library
William found a magazine that had a picture of a windmill in its front cover
explaining in detail how to build one
He decided to construct his on windmill
and so he did, with PCV pipes, car and bicycle waste parts, and components such as resin
He was able to build his own windmill that powered a light bulb that he had in room
so that he could read at night
His neighbors were marveled when they saw powered light
and so he decided to construct another windmill in order to provide electricity to the homes of his neighbors
He continued to build windmills in order to pump water into the crops fields
This moving story represents a greater message
We should ask ourselves
While we are all here
How many children around the world share William´s passion
but never had the opportunity or fortune of coming across such magazine
This question also brings up the importance of technology and its role in education
Precisely, technology can take over the magazine´s role
one of giving free access to information
This is precisely the role that a computer can take
A magazine is a passive source that on its own does not teach anything
but it is the individual that uses it that can act upon the information
A computer gives us, what we can call, a free access to information or education
As a result, we have given ourselves a mission
Our mission is going to be to give every boy and girl in the world a computer
The question is, how are we going to accomplish this mission
In the year 2010, 170 million laptops were sold around the world
The majority of these purchases were done to replace a computer that we already owned
In Africa there are 109 million boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 19
Only 3% of African population has access to the internet
As a result, by using the laptops that we stop using in a year
we have the capacity to provide every boy and girl between the ages of 15 and 19
in the African continent
with a computer
Let´s imagine then that we are going to carry on this mission together
The mission will be to provide these computers to the kids
We know we have the supply
The millions of laptops that stopped being used every year
We also have the demand
Millions of children that do not have access to information
Our goal will be to oversee the clean up of the excess capacity in technology
and its transportation to take it to these children
As a result, we need a plan to carry on with this mission
If we utilize the traditional problem solving approach
One of the first things we must solve is funding
How are we going to fund this operation, our mission
This brings up a dilemma, the dilemma of opportunity cost
If we are going to invest resources to accomplish our tasks
By definition this implies that we will stop investing in other possible types of aid
For example
Aid for the distribution of food, medicine, drinking water, mosquito nets
This brings up another question
Which of these is more important
Our generically speaking, which is the most optimal
This question comes up because we are making an assumption
What we are assuming, when we ask ourselves this question
is that the system of international cooperation is defined by a zero-sum game strategy
In other words, it is not possible for every player in the game
When all the transactions are finalized
for all of them to all have a positive result
If we decide to provide a type of aid then we must provide it another way
At Labdoo we question this principle
We began to discuss the creation of a system which operates under a sum one game
In other words, all the participants will obtain a benefit
The question is how are we going to accomplish this
This is how Labdoo works
A bit of history, we began the project Labdoo when were students at the University of California
Before the project Labdoo, working along with Engineers without Borders from the university
We followed a traditional centralized model
Before Labdoo we would do all the tasks involved in the project
We would pick up the laptops, we would do reformat them, install the educational package
And then we would travel and install them, etc
This is what we can call a centralized system
With Labdoo, as you can see, it’s a different concept
The idea is to instead of centralization, decentralize the project, maximize it.
Instead of us doing every single task
Now we dedicate our time to build the tools necessary so that everyone can participate
The idea is that all of us here surely have a laptop
The question we should ask ourselves is, where do we want our laptop to be in 5 years from now, in 2016
The answer is, well I would like for my computer to be in the hands of a child
So the thing is that every one of us can take on our own mini mission
and the tools are connectivity, social networks
This concept of connectivity and completion of tasks via distributed tools comes from a concept already studied by various economists
In which they emphasize the value of social networks
The value of social networks says the following
It says that it is possible that with the technology we have today
to take a big task and break it up into smaller tasks
tasks so small that can execute through resources that have zero opportunity costs
This concept is necessary to design a system of global cooperation
through which we can accomplish our mission without using up more resources from the planet
Thanks to this concept we can design organizations that operate via a sum one game
in which all the players benefit without using up other resources which can help us provide other kinds of aids
Lets see some examples
This is a map that shows us the points of activity of the Labdoo social network
Each of these points indicate a determined activity
These activities can be of various types, but the key is that these activities are small, so small that they do not cost anything
So, for example
One activity can be
Well a person like us, labeling a laptop
Another activity can be another person like us, doing a clean-up or an installation of a educational program
We have also seen the concept of Dootrip
In the Dootrip concept, travelers offer free space in their luggage to take laptops to various locations
The scheduling of these trips are done through social networks
The key is to provide the information, once we have the information we can make better decisions
Let´s amplify this image, to take a closer look at some of the stories that are occurring right now
In the north of Taiwan in Hsinchu, people like us have begun to label laptops
In the same city, there is a technologies company that also has a branch in northern California in Silicon Valley San Jose
Due to these two locations, the company has a flow of engineers and managers that are continuously traveling
They have offered to establish an international Dootrip route for the transportation of laptops
As a result, the laptops labeled in Taiwan travel to California to be cleaned up
In this case laptops were sent to Northern California
In Southern California, university students volunteer their time to do the clean-up of laptops
One of these students, went to visit his parents for Thanksgiving
Who live in Northern California
This student used this trip to make a Dootrip
In this dootrip, he took the laptops from Northern to Southern California
where once at the university they were cleaned up
Suddenly the tsunami occurred in Japan
and the necessity came up to use laptops, in a neighborhood in Kyoto, in order to connect people
So an NGO in southern California took the laptops and made a Dootrip to send the laptops to Kyoto
Where at the moment, these laptops are providing a means of communication
While all of this was happening, in other cities like in Barcelona o Madrid, there was also labeling activities going on
Some of the computers labeled in Barcelona were cleaned up and sent via Dootrip to New York
In New York they were stored awaiting another Dootrip
In a matter of days, an NGO took the laptops and sent them to the town of Ndoni in Nigeria where they were installed at a school
While this was happening, the labeled laptops in Madrid were picked up by a local NGO and were taken to Kampala. Uganda, at another school
These stories give light to the road of a new era of international cooperation
In this new era of international cooperation
For the first time we have global tools, truly global, to accomplish global missions
In the case of Labdoo
These tools must serve their purpose to bring out the true potential of all the Williams around the world
Thank You