If I donate some OLPCs to a new school in Haiti, will they be able to connect to the interwebs?

This is an interesting question. One clarification: OLPC = One Laptop Per Child. Many of the people in Port Au Prince and surrounding environs who were left homeless by the earthquake are living in camps.

A recent story on National Public Radio (probably on All Things Considered) said that many of the people in these camps aren't likely to leave any time soon because they actually have more amenities in camp (like a reliable source of fresh water, and many small businesses have popped up to serve people in that community). One of the services I've heard about are the people with generators who are running a small entertainment service to attract users to their businesses. They run videos or DVDs of programs that attract the children, who in turn get their parents to pay a small fee to use the businesses' phone chargers and such.

With the prospect of some electricity and an interest in the Internet, I think you'll find places where WiFi is available within the area impacted by the earthquake.

Here is a story about one group doing just that: inveneo.org/?q=haiti-links-grow Published in January, the Inveneo organization is doing just what you suggest. There are member organizations of a Non-government organization (NGO) called NetHope working on connectivity in the earthquake zone (here are their FAQs: http://www.nethope.org/about/faq/).

Inveneo appears to be working on connectivity issues in poor regions around the world (here is their mission statement: http://www.inveneo.org/mission) It looks like in Haiti they began by providing connectivity to the various NGOs that moved in to work on the recovery. Now that many months have passed, I suggest you follow some of the links and see if they have a place for your offer of laptops. I suspect they do, or they can tell you how to go about it.

Contact them directly and discuss this. If you set up computers, I imagine the users would come to a central place to use them, where a signal and power exist, or users would be within a WiFi region and would take advantage of one of the businesses I mentioned above, to charge a battery. Or are you offering hand-crank or solar powered laptops?

Good luck!

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.