The Laptop Crusade

Hi Guys,

When I first heard that our government was placing an order for 1 million laptops for kids (as reported in Vanguard) I was skeptical of the plan and even went as far as protesting my disgust to all and sundry.

On reading the article in Wired News http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.08/laptop.html?pg=1&topic=laptop&topic_set=  I have changed my mine.

I now think it's a great idea and an opportunity to educate out youth, and this initiative should be given a chance to develop further.

What I feel is more important is, we Nigerians have here an opportunity to influence the development of our own software industry.  It is reported that the laptops will come pre-loaded with Linux as the operating system which can be customised even further, Linux is a great OS and there are thousand of free programs available on the internet.

Opportunities are available to create localised and open source programs for Nigerians including games and local language literature.

Just imagine, the amount of free software programming tutorials currently on the internet can now be available to a wider audience of Nigerian students and teachers.

This could be the start of a revolution in software, and Nigeria may one day become a hub for the development of smart applications and hopefully an outsourcing centre.