The Broken Kindle Problem: An Aid Program Runs Into Trouble

Nearly half of the e-readers sent to schools in sub-Saharan Africa end up broken. Given the right tools and instructions, could schoolkids learn to fix Kindles? Every day, we hear from kids who have used iFixit repair guides to fix their own electronics. I just got back from the USA Science and Engineering Festival where I watched hundreds of middle schoolers fixing iPods and DVD players. With good guides and the right tools, kids don't have any more trouble repairing electronics than they do putting together a Lego set. Why not ship the Worldreader devices with repair manuals? Why not give schools a supply of repair parts? Why not teach all children in the program how to fix their own e-readers? Fewer devices would break. Kids wouldn't go three months without access to their textbooks. They would learn valuable engineering skills. Worldreader, if you're reading, we'd love to help: if you develop a more repairable device, we'd be happy to write your repair manuals for free. Know anyone else starting an educational technology non-profit? Our offer is open to them, too. But please, factor repairability into the beginning of the planning process. Hardware can and will break--that's expected and normal. Building a plan for maintaining the hardware should be normal as well.