Ethiopian children teach themselves to hack

Do you remember the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) educational initiative for countries without public school systems? OLPC got tired of trying to teach children things, and decided to help them help themselves. OLPC left a box in a remote village with enough solar-powered tablets for each child. OLPC founder Nichola Negroponte describes the experiment:


If this sounds a lot like Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, you’re right on the money. The educational software in the novel was a direct inspiration for much of the OLPC software. Some fiction is just awesome enough to make into reality.

Also, can you imagine the games they’ll be making in a few months?