An Open Letter to
Bill Gates: Why you are wrong and how Candy Crush Will Save the World
Like many, I have woken up and made sure that there were no
rats in my Farmville crop before I thought about taking out the garbage in my
own house. I own a hostel and recently
caught the handyman sitting in a dark shack where we keep our garbage, his face
lit up by glowing virtual candy when he too, should have been taking out the
garbage. This can’t be a good
thing. Or can it? In fact, candy crush can save the world. Oh and Bill Gates, you are totally wrong.
I live in Panama, and although I have adapted well and
generally do not overestimate potential dangers, I recently had a scare. I’ve been gaining a couple of pounds but vow
to lose it so I promised I will not buy clothes a size larger. There was some irritation just below my navel
and thought it was a mole irritated by my belt and bulging waistline. A few days passed but the irritation did not
so I decided to contemplate my spot. It’s
an ingrown hair I thought because of the little hair protruding from below the
spot. Wait, no, those aren’t hairs. Those are legs. Fricken legs!
Turns out this little critter attached to me and I panicked and
ripped it out. I had been warned as a
kid about fatal diseases ticks can carry and thought they must be worse in the
tropics. I had a problem. Perhaps that problem was paranoia but it was
a problem nonetheless.
I went to the two local private hospitals in the small Panamanian
city that has become home and I spoke with the doctors. (In Spanish.
There’s an app for that, thank you Duolingo.com) I tried to find a dermatologist but there
were none. Thought about the university to find a biologist. That wouldn’t work
So I took out my smart phone and took a photo. I became a photographer. Then I did a reverse image search on Google
and came up with a shortlist of potential species and searched again with Google
images. I became an entomologist. Found
the species and then got on WebMD. I
became a doctor. I discovered the tick
was a female Cayenne tick and they can carry the fatal Rocky Mountain Spotted
Fever. So then I searched Rocky Mountain
Spotted Fever and Panama. I became a
researcher. A doctor had published a
rare case of the disease ten years ago and remarked on how it was rare because
there had not been a reported case since the 60’s. The disease was rare here. I ceased to be a hypochondriac.
(To write this article I typed bug specialist into Google to
learn to spell entomologist.)
None of these tools, my smart phone camera, WebMD, Google
were around years ago. I can now problem
solve on my own. Cramming information
into our brains is useless. All the
doctors I talked to in the hospital couldn’t tell me anything except that the dermatologist
is on vacation. My ex girlfriend, now a
doctor, did her homework on WebMD.
What a waste of time it is to memorize something now at the
tip of our fingers. We need to become
problem solvers not trivia experts.
Experiments in
Education
In the United States The Minerva Project is experimenting
with this at the university level. It’s
a new university being set up by former Snapfish founder Ben Nelson. “Students
who need introductory classes such as Economics 101 will be encouraged to find
free online lectures. Anything that can be delivered in a lecture, we don't
think it's particularly moral of us to charge money for," he said.
In developing countries some educators are catching on that student-led
learning and collaboration problem solving yield better results. In a violent poverty stricken village in
Mexico, Sergio Juárez Correa introduced “the logic of the digital age to the
classroom. Access to a world of infinite
information has changed how we communicate, process information, and think.
Innovation, creativity, and independent thinking are increasingly crucial to
the global economy.” Schools are now
forming in the virtual cloud and the physical classroom nothing more than one
room with a caretaker. On the computer a
problem is presented and the students self organize around it and take charge
of solving it. I dare you to read how Sergio
led one of the most underprivileged girls in Mexico rise to the top of the math
ranks in Mexico without shedding a tear. Read the Wired article HERE.
Bill You Are Wrong
and Google is Right
Two thirds of the planet’s population have limited access to
the internet and Google plans to change that with the crazy idea of WiFi balloons. Bill, you said, “When you're dying of
malaria, I suppose you'll look up and see that balloon, and I'm not sure how
it'll help you.” I’ll tell you
Bill. The lure of the internet will…
what’s the word? Squish? No, crush, crush malaria. Candy Crush will crush malaria.
The French canal workers in my adopted country of Panama
failed at problem solving. They tried to
build a sea level canal before the Americans succeeded. Part of the reason the Americans triumphed was
they solved the problem of malaria with knowledge. They discovered that malaria was contracted
by mosquito bites and refitted all their camps with screens. Knowledge is power.
And to tell you the truth Bill, with all due respect, kids
without malaria would much rather play Candy Crush than eradicate malaria. What use are all these balloons in villages
without electricity? You do not know the
power and allure those little virtual candies hold and the lengths people will
go to charge their phones to get at them.
Maybe they will use the smokeless stoves being developed by THIS COMPANY
raising money on Kickstarter, that charge cell phones. Maybe they will download plans to build a
windmill or they’ll burn calories on stationary bike that charges their
phone. I don’t know how but they will
find a way to get at those little candies.
A great man (his name slips my
memory) once said, “I believe if you show people the problems, and you
show them the solutions, they will act.” I believe if you show people the
problems, and you show them the tools to solve the problems, they will solve
them on their own. And in the process they
will educate themselves. Education is the
most powerful weapon to change the world and now it is hiding just beneath a
game of Candy Crush. (And more people will read this letter to you because it
will climb high in Google rankings because of the number of times it contains
the words candy and crush.)
The handyman I caught
playing Candy Crush has now dropped it.
Sometimes I catch him on Duolingo, a colorful free app with a cute bird
that masquerades as a game but is also a tool to learn any language in the
world. He gets a $25 bonus with each
level he achieves. The handyman is now a
manager and runs tours at my hostel. The
more English he learns, the better his tours are and the more I charge. I don’t mind that he is playing on his cell
phone.
In one day, trying to
solve my tick bite paranoia I was a Spanish student, photographer, entomologist
doctor and researcher. But the proudest
thing I have become is a teacher. One
third of the world covered by the internet is not enough. Candy Crush and Google will change that. So Bill, take that and stick it in your
Windows 8. (Seriously dude, put a cool
game there, maybe people will think about using it.)