"The Internet Industry No Longer Exists": Negroponte

By Tang Yong, People's Daily

3/21/06

At the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis in November 2005, Nicholas Negroponte unveiled a $100 laptop computer designed for students in the developing world. The project is part of a broader program by One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit program started by Negroponte and other Media Lab faculty, to extend Internet access in developing countries. The computers lack many features found on a typical personal computer, such as a hard disk and software. Negroponte has left the MIT Media Lab in February 2006 to devote his time to the One Laptop Per Child project.

Like Being Digital, One Laptop Per Child has received both warm praise and sharp criticism. Earlier this year, Google founder Larry Page said his company is backing MIT's project. But Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel, the world's largest chip maker, ridiculed last October that "Mr Negroponte has called it a $100 laptop -- I think a more realistic title should be 'the $100 gadget', The problem is that gadgets have not been successful". On March 15, 2006, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates also mocked this $100 laptop computer. Gates said: "why not get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you're not sitting there cranking the thing while you're trying to type?"

Nicholas Negroponte has become a household word in China today even though it is quite difficult for Chinese to remember and pronounce his name. This is not only because of his famous investment on Sohu.com but also because of his controversial best seller Being Digital and his unconventional and legendary life. Negroponte has visited China many times and deeply involved in the development of the Internet industry in China. Late this month he is going to visit China again. This time he will not invest on a startup Internet company but shoulder another important mission: make his One Laptop Per Child project become a reality in China.

Tang Yong, People's Daily correspondent based in Washington DC, conducted a brief exclusive interview with Mr. Negroponte several weeks before his planned departure to China. The interview was done via email, which is his favorite way of communications.

Tang Yong: You are a professor so why did you create One Laptop Per Child project?

Negroponte: I created it because it will not happen otherwise. Free market forces will not bring the cost down sufficiently. This project is a humanitarian effort, meant to make learning available to the poorest and most remote children.

Tang Yong: According to the news, the $100 laptop computer is expected to be in the market in the fourth quarter of this year. Is this correct?

Negroponte: It will not be in the market. Timing: we expect it to appear in numbers during the first quarter of 2007. At that time it will be made available to children free of charge in three to six pilot areas, in each of seven launch countries.

Tang Yong: You are working with many partners on the Program. They include the United Nations, heads of state, charity organizations and etc. How do you work with them? Is it easy to persuade them to accept your idea?

Negroponte: This idea needs no persuasion. The story is short and simple. The only people who do not accept this idea are those who have vested interests in it not happening. Usually these people do not go public with the opinion, because One Laptop Per Child is a non-profit organization with a purely charitable and non-profit purpose. Heads of State know that their most valuable natural resource is their children. Scaling education as we know it will take too long and be too expensive. This is a very economic solution, one that engages the children in the betterment of their own education.

Tang Yong: What is the impact of the Program on the IT industry? Do companies like Microsoft, Dell, HP support your Program?

Negroponte: There are two impacts, both of which are inevitable anyway. One Laptop Per Child may be accelerating them slightly. One is Linux on the desktop, bound to happen and now certainly will, with what will be the world's single largest release of Linux. The other is lower cost and simpler laptops, also overdue as complexity, more than cost, is out of control today. My laptop, one of the most expensive you can buy, is slower and less reliable than ever before -- each day is a fight.

Tang Yong: So far what have you done in China to make this Program a reality?

Negroponte: I have been to China about ten times in eighteen months, and will continue to seek the country's involvement. It will take a bold decision because such a child-centric approach to learning is not in perfect keeping with the educational philosophy and social system in China. On March 31st we will have a major event, co-hosted with Tsinghua University.

Tang Yong: What do you know about the Internet industry in China except Zhang Chaoyang and Sohu.com? Why did you invest on Sohu.com, not other Chinese Internet companies?

Negroponte: There were no other Internet companies when I invested in Charles Zhang. That was almost ten years ago. I know more about the Chinese Internet industry these days from Motorola, one whose Board of Directors I have been on, also for about ten years. I was much more active five years ago, trying to help China avoid the 3G mess.

Tang Yong: It seems China is lagging behind the West in all the industries except the Internet. Since Internet is quite new, so far nobody is left far behind. Why doesn't China have giant Internet companies like Google and Yahoo?

Negroponte: I am not sure China is lagging in all industries other than the Internet, in part because you have many advanced industries and you dominate manufacturing worldwide. Also, in all due respect, the Internet advancement is driven by the user community more than the industry. Likewise in cellphones. China has handset and switching, but they are yet innovative and trend setting. They tend to follow. This will change soon. Education is a major part of it, but by education I do not mean learning more facts.

Tang Yong: Are you still optimistic today about the future of global Internet industry? What is the biggest stumbling block to hinder the further development of the Internet?

Negroponte: I think the Internet industry no longer exists. Innovation is embodied in applications, services and a gaggle of devices, large and small. We will see enormous changes in banking, dating, buying, selling, entertaining, educating, aging and on and on. Rarely will people think of these as the Internet industry and rightfully so.

Profile: Nicholas Negroponte

Born in 1943, Nicholas Negroponte is a Greek-American computer scientist best known as founder and ex-director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.

Son of a Greek ship owner on New York City's Upper East Side, Nicholas Negroponte studied at MIT and earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Architecture from MIT in 1966. In that year he joined the faculty of MIT. In 1985, Negroponte piloted MIT's Media Lab into existence. It developed into the pre-eminent computer science laboratory for new media and a high-tech playground for investigating the human-computer interface.

Negroponte expanded many of the ideas he wrote about in his Wired columns into a bestselling book Being Digital (1995), which made famous his forecasts on how the interactive world, the entertainment world, and the information world would eventually merge. Being Digital was a bestseller and was translated into some twenty languages. However, critics faulted his techno-utopian ideas for failing to consider the historical, political, and cultural realities with which new technologies should be viewed. In the years following the dot-com bust, the book dated quickly.