The "$100 Dollar Laptop" Project Launches

The proper name of the project is the One Laptop Per Child, OLPC, project.  It is an ambitious project but one that could be hugely impactful to the well being of the planet.  I've mentioned it on this blog a year ago in a related article.  The news say that it could be as early as mid 2007 when the first group of children get it.  The father of the project, Nicholas Negroponte, says, "it's not a laptop project, it is an education project".  And so right he is.

What I want to underline is that the laptop is not a laptop.  Not for the children who use it.  It is their TV, it is their phone, it is their entertainment machine and it is their access to the Internet.  It is probably the biggest equalizer they'll get relative to children in developed countries.  My hat's off.

I also believe the project, if successful, could become the new currency of charity.  What feels better, giving $100 to a child or giving him/her a laptop?  $1000 buys you 10 (read ten) laptops.  Warren Buffet's big charitable donation would put 300M kids on the Internet.  It's huge.

I hope this project is a massive success.  I am 100% in support of it.

Comments

[Attila Csordas]

$100 Dollar Laptop's main designer Yves Béhar said in a Wired article concerning the project: “One Laptop per Child is the first thing I’ve seen in many years that is in line with the original goal of the PC.”

context:
“I grew up as a designer in Silicon Valley,” the Swiss-born Béhar says, “but I’m not one who sees computing as the remedy for everything.”
There was something about the project that appealed to him, though, something that almost sounds like nostalgia. “Computers were supposed to be a democratizing tool. You used to see that boundless optimism from Silicon Valley hardware companies. I’m not sure it’s still there,” he says. “One Laptop per Child is the first thing I’ve seen in many years that is in line with the original goal of the PC.”

The financial limit is also a very nice designer challenge.