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 apart these possibilities, but our bias (in agreement with the author of this blog item ) is to favor (3) and perhaps (2), rather than (1).

Everything we have been describing is based on a platform of distributed computing and communication technology, a. k. a. e-infrastructure or cyberinfrastructure. We assume continued advances in this area are driven in part by continuing exponential gains in computation and communication rates and storage capacity. “Hundred dollar laptops” and “one laptop per child” activities are growing. The capacity of international networks for education and research is growing and reach through the leadership of the U. S. National Science Foundation and their international counterparts. (Significant progress has been made recently in Latin America, and there is some reason for optimism in better networking to sub-Saharan Africa although much remains to be done, especially within countries.) But access to the supporting technology, especially, but not exclusively, in the developing world cannot be taken for granted.

One of us, Hammond, has extensive on-the-ground experience with information and communication technologies (ICT) in developing regions and with new technologies and trends that could be important within five years. These may be ripe for testing and for exploratory investments by Hewlett in support of OER and the next phase we are calling OPLI. There is more on this topic in section 3.2.3. In the Appendix to this report is a paper by Hammond, “The Realities of Information and Communication Technology in Developing Region and Implications for OER Initiatives.” It makes a strong case for mobile phone technology.

The experience with basic connectivity in the developing world is that the first step is far more transformative than the same (incremental) step in our developed world, and education in emerging economies is in the mainframe era, not even the PC era, so mobiles (situation-aware, portable, always-on devices) have the potential to be equally transformative in the developing world.

A primary goal of the Hewlett Foundation Open Educational Resources Initiative is to use information technology to help equalize access to knowledge