One laptop per child
Negroponte’s belief led to the creation in 2005 of the nonprofit foundation One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). According to the foundation’s website, “OLPC sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.”
“OLPC is based on a constructionist approach to learning,” Negroponte says. “Simply stated, it is learning by doing, where kids make things, collaborate, and share more than they consume instruction. The laptop is very child centric, and it is designed from scratch to enable this kind of learning.”
Negroponte wanted this for all children, everywhere, but he realized conventional computers were too expensive. And so his thought turned to developing a $100 laptop. He estimates that there are more than one billion school-age children around the world living in poverty who, with education, can become instruments of change in their countries. He reasoned that those countries had good reason to provide these computers to its children, especially at this low price.
Good, and cheap
Currently, OLPC offers its XO-1 laptop computer for $188, and it is working to reduce the cost to the $100 envisioned by Negroponte, by the end of this year. Its rugged, low-power computer is anything but a toy, even though it may look like one. It is wireless, has a flash memory rather than a hard drive, and it runs on Linux rather that Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The laptop is spill-proof, rain-proof, dust-proof, and drop-proof. It is fan-less and silent, and it weighs 3.2 pounds. One battery charge will power six hours of heavy activity, or 24 hours of reading. The laptop has a built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet, game-pad controllers, and a screen that rotates.
For-profit companies, recognizing the size of the low-end computer market, are trying to horn in on OLPC’s act. Intel has recently given its Classmate PC to all of the children in one Mexican class with the hope that the country will sign up for wider distribution. And there are dozens of other high-tech companies developing their own versions of low-cost computers for sale to foreign third-world countries.
Faced with competition, Negroponte is concerned. “For-profit companies see countries like Nigeria, Brazil, Vietnam, etc., as very big markets,” he says. “They put their own self-interest ahead of children's and will sometimes argue for small numbers, to be disruptive. OLPC is used to it. Countries are coming around. Keep in mind, we are not a laptop company, but a humanitarian education program.”
The ‘grand experiment’ is underway
Mass production of the computer began in November 2007, and Negroponte says he expects at least 1.5 million machines will be sold to third-world countries by the end of 2008.. That is far fewer than he once imagined. Some people attribute the shortfall to the increased cost, while others believe governments will have second thoughts because the unit lacks a Windows operating system.
Asked recently in an interview on 60 Minutes if his objective of putting a laptop in the hands of every needy child around the globe is realistic, Negroponte replied, "If I was realistic I wouldn’t have started this project, okay? …. So it’s not realistic … but we'll come close."