Hundred Dollar Laptops Teach Third World Kids

A drive to distribute $100 laptops among the children of the world's poor has reached 300,000 kids so far, and continues unabated.

Even as the West hurtles into the 21st century, many regions of the world are forced to stagnate in what for them might as well be the 19th century due to poverty.

The not-for-profit One Laptop Per Child is targeting poverty by providing computers to schoolchildren throughout the Third World, including such countries as Nigeria, Uruguay, Rwanda, Peru, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mongolia, Lebanon, New Guinea, Nepal, and Mali.

The tiny green laptops being provided actually run $187 but founder Nicholas Negroponte, on leave from MIT, told Voice of America that with a further drop in component costs, they can hit the $100 threshold. The backbone of the project is the XO-1, or Children's Computer, manufactured by Quantas Computer of Taiwan.

Cost reduction is achieved by lowering the cost of the display, streamling the software, and marketing the laptops in volume to a participating country's education ministry. The government issues the laptops directly to the children as they would textbooks, with operating system and software in the local language. The computer can do almost everything except store great amounts of data.

To maximize their usefulness, the computers are envisioned as not just low-cost, but rugged, low-power, complete with content and software. The laptops run off the same power source found in any American home, but is also chargeable by use of a hand crank or solar panel.

The three-year-old program is supported by donations from individuals (who can donate by mail, Google, or Paypal), businesses, and foundations.

The computers are not intended to replace building new schools and providing books, but are an important supplement. Negroponte noted at the OLPC website FAQ, "Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration."

The computers are aimed at children in grades six through 12, and are galvanizing the schoolchildren who receive lessons that just may help them bring their homelands out of crippling poverty.

Principal Guillermo Lazo of Apostol Santiago in Peru said "They have a powerful tool in their hands even though, incredibly, the children think they are toys. But they are really a powerful information tool."

The website is found at http://laptop.org/.