October 2006 Volume 9 Number 4

The experiences of these Laureates give credence to this assumption. Barefoot College, started in 1972, now has
20 campuses in 13 states in India and is about to start training people from five other countries. Freeplay
Foundation has distributed over 50,000 radios reaching an estimated one million people every day. Schools
Online has installed computers with Internet access in over 400 schools in 35 countries, and trained hundreds of
teachers in those schools to make the most of their new technology resources. The radio programs developed in
cooperation with local partners by Equal Access, delivered through digital satellite radio, reach an estimated
audience of 9 million people in Nepal, while in Afghanistan a broadcast aimed at teachers reaches an estimated
3,500 teachers, benefiting the education of about 150,000 students. Katha in India and Asociación Ajb’atz
Enlace Quiché in Guatemala are both agents of change and of cultural survival for the communities they serve,
creating spaces and opportunities for people who would otherwise not know how to leverage the potential
benefits of ICTs to learn better, express their creativity, and preserve their cultural heritage.
Such “network effects” are even more in evidence when the technology in use is the Internet. Although based in
the United States, what programs like Kids’ Space (2001 Laureate), Global SchoolNet (2002 Laureate), Project
Gutenberg (2001 Laureate), and to some extent I*EARN (2004 Laureate) and MIT Open CourseWare (2005
Laureate) are doing was simply not possible in a pre-Internet era. The ideals sustaining their work argue that
ICTs are not meant to be merely “enablers” of outmoded but easily reproduced teaching and learning practices,
but rather a force or catalyst for structural changes in education. By enabling access to rich resources and making
possible communication and collaboration across time and space in well-structured virtual spaces, these
Laureates have created wonderful opportunities for students and teachers who no longer have to be limited to the
resources in their classroom and schools. Global SchoolNet and I*EARN, for example, each have thousands of
schools and teachers participating in collaborative projects from over 100 countries around the world, involving
more than one million students in learning experiences made all the more memorable because of the
international connections. The MIT Open CourseWare initiative has already spawned similar projects at several
other institutions in the U.S., Japan, and Spain, and also sparked a vital debate about the role of intellectual
property in the future of education. At a time when intellectual property regimes seem to be becoming more
restrictive, MIT’s attitude of generous information sharing has re-opened conversations about the academic
values of free knowledge dissemination for the benefit of humanity at large.
Concerns over the replicability, scalability, and sustainability of all these social benefit programs has led to the
creation of the Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) program (Koch, Coppock, Guerra, & Bruno, 2004;
Mangan, 2004), which in addition to an intensive, two-week, on-campus workshop for selected attendees is
actively investigating the use of online environments to support ongoing access to education, information,
communication and other resources (Hernández-Ramos, Koch, Dommel, Guerra, & Bowker, 2005). The goal is
to leverage online technologies to sustain and advance the work of social entrepreneurs around the world. The
online environment would complement and extend the work that takes place during two-week summer
workshops at a university campus, and will allow access to individuals and organizations that cannot participate
in person.
Conclusions
Looking at the work of these first 25 Laureates of the Technology Benefiting Humanity Awards, it would be fair
to conclude that “educational technology” can, indeed, benefit humanity. However, this general answer requires
a deeper look at several common issues raised by this analysis and other experiences.
First among these is the fact that it is unproductive to speak of educational technology as a single entity, and in
particular to limit its meaning to computers and the Internet. Almost all of these Laureates used computer and
Internet technologies in their work, but they clearly went beyond providing access to computers and the Internet
to the recognition that the process of change in educational practices and systems requires systemic, long-term
approaches.
A second question addresses the invisible demands of technology—the fact that extensive infrastructures may be
needed to allow computers and the Internet to function properly (or at all) in education settings around the world.
The world may be steadily moving toward a knowledge-based economy where networked computers and other
devices are critical tools, but increasingly this also means that electrical, telecommunications, educational, and
other infrastructures need to be in place before countries can hope to effectively participate in such an economy.
Projects like Schools Online, Barefoot College, and Computers for Youth highlight the need for—and the
benefits of—a systemic approach that aims to have all the pieces under their control in place, and work with
partners to address all other components.
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