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In a footnote, PG says the poor need hardware to program. I work with poor kids (and volunteer to teach technology to them). Hardware is relatively easy to come
by loumf 13y ago
In a footnote, PG says the poor need hardware to program. I work with poor kids (and volunteer to teach technology to them). Hardware is relatively easy to come by (there are cheap options and donations), but access to the Internet is not.
- zachlatta 13y agoHow have you been working to overcome the lack of access to the internet? This is something I've been giving a lot of thought lately.
- loumf 13y agoThey just have to go to central places (cafes, libraries). It's not easy. Also, not everything we do needs internet -- we tear apart and rebuild desktops -- that's actually a fairly easy thing to teach even a young kid.
- marquis 13y agoCan you source a router and teach them to build their own internet over private LAN? There is a huge range of basic to one-day advanced things they could do with socket programming and building basic client/servers to have fun with. Then source some donations and build a neighbourhood mesh network. Note: I'm a woman and started this way teaching myself C when young. Client/server tutorials were one of the most fun, I recall.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- loumf 13y agoI'm not part of an organization -- it's mostly 1:1 with people I find through other volunteering (Big Brothers, talking at middle schools, etc). We wing it based on their interest. I posted because PG said a YC non-profit was looking at this and wanted to say that if you want a kid to program at home, the issue is that they need access to the Internet (to get to a client/server tutorial, for example). His statement seemed to say that access to hardware was the problem, which in my experience, is not the case. In my 1:1 cases, I can manage. EDIT to add the footnote text from the article Many kids now have computers with Internet access, but kids from poor families often don't. So to get them interested in programming you also have to solve the problem of hardware somehow. That is among the problems being attacked by one of the nonprofits in the current YC batch. The problem of not having a "computer with Internet access" is not a "problem of hardware", it's the Internet part.
- jchung 13y agoIf you're seriously interested in this topic, I'd suggest looking into the work being done by Evan Marwell from Education Superhighway.
- loumf 13y agoThis is an excellent initiative. However, their focus is on in-school internet, which may be a problem in some places, but not near me. The in-school internet is fine, and they even have some technical classes. But, to a kid, that wants to follow their own interests, they need the internet at home. Not having it at home is a huge disadvantage to the poor.
- dictum 13y agoThat's one positive side effect of 3G: more people can get Internet access. Data caps for pre-paid plans are low here (200MB-300MB), but at roughly $5/month, they're the only affordable option for poor families and people who live away from metro areas.
- loumf 13y agoNot for a desktop computer for programming purposes. Access to google, stack overflow, github, hosting, etc.
- dictum 13y agoIt's a cup half-empty/half-full thing. I'm happy that more people can access the Internet, but I wish they could have uncapped broadband. Until we get there, hacker spaces for the poor will remain a necessity.