Brazil’s “Computers for All”
Pablo Lorenzzoni writes that Brazil’s “Computers for All” initiative is already a huge success. His blog post is in English, but the links are Portuguese, so I cannot share any more detail than his synopsis:
“We’ve ended up 2005 in a pretty good shape: fisl7.0 promises to be the best of all, fisl6.0’s videos were finally put online, the process that was leading to the buying of more than 5 thousand Windows/Office licenses by the National Congress was halted, the standards for the Brazilian digital tv is going open source, and, finally, the best of all: the “computer for all” project is a huge success.
All of the above are great, but this last one I point out for it’s the largest digital inclusion project I know: It puts a pretty good computer (by brazilian standards) inside the home of anybody that can pay ~ R$ 60,00 (around US$ 25,00) a month for two years, with internet access and running a branded GNU/Linux. The reports have been great (e.g. one of the sellers sold 13 thousand units in a month while expecting to sell 5 thousand). I think this project is a major score!”
Congratulations to Brazil’s people and its leaders!