BBC NEWS | Africa | Computers to Africa scheme criticised

BBC News reports on a recent report from the The UK Centre of International Education, criticising Western Companies efforts to ship 2nd hand computers to Africa.

It has been a very very costly mistake,” Bildad Kagai from the Open Source Foundation for Africa told the BBC World Service’s Outlook programme.

“The issue is that we did not consider the consequent costs that come with the donation of computers.”

Although I have little concrete experience in trhese matters, it has been one of our firm stand-points while working on Digital Divide issues, that such 2nd hand programs were NOT what we were interested in. I could add to the above criticism, that a typical 3-5 year old computer, while being perfectly adequate for running basic office applications, uses up to 10 times as much power as a modern computer down-scaled for the same purposes. And power is one of those things that are seriously scarce in many parts of the developing world.

In other words, what the developing world needs is hardware and software, designed and scaled explicitly to solve local problems, and contend with local issues.

One thought on “Second Hand Computers Criticism”

  1. Hello Sir/ Madam

    I am Aman Singhal From India Company Name Doll International , we are interested in buying all these products just let us know what is the best price you can quote us as i am ready to take all these in bulk quantity and want to be there for the long run business deal with you so we want some assistance from your side that is we want help from you about the product knowledge.
    I want to know that what type of computers you can give us
    as u mentioned that u are dealing in

    monitors

    laptops

    computer parts

    whole systems

    and etc

    So can u please let me know that which monitors are there

    what are the laptops which company , what is the configuration are in that

    what all are the computer parts u are dealing in

    and what is the configuration of the whole system means is the pc P4 with 2.4 Ghz wha is the size of hard disk and ram ? how mach and what is the warrenty structure and what is the duty charged from there to INDIA and all the benifits you can provie us . thanx

    waiting for your earliest reply,
    aman singhal
    D-28, kamla nagar
    India
    +91-11-33054263
    keaton_mdolla@yahoo.com
    aman_singhal1712@yahoo.com

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