The “$100 Laptop Project,” formally known as One Laptop Per Child, has long been the holy grail of educational technology for the developing world. Led by Nicholas Negroponte, the project aims to get a laptop into the hands of every child in the developing world.
As specs for these rugged machines became public - hand-crank power, self-networking wifi - people in the developed world started to drool at the $100 price tag; alas, you had to be a government and buy a million of them to qualify. Until now.
OLPC just announced that, starting November 12, you will be able to purchase one of the green machines for yourself for $399. This also pays for a 2nd laptop, to be given to a child in the developing world. The price is, obviously, not at the $100 mark yet, but they’re working on it.
This strategy is incalculably brilliant. We can have something we want (and hey, Americans want a lot of stuff) while paying for someone in the third world to have something they need. It’s not unlike my proposal for the 100% self-tax.
You can sign up for an email reminder now at xogiving.org, and buy two laptops this Christmas. Along with Kiva, this might be the way to give this holiday season.
Justin - Sweet! Thanks for sharing this information. I think that this is a great opportunity.
[...] XOGiving.org - The “One Laptop Per Child” effort has rolled out this site where you can purchase two of these special laptops for $399. One comes to you, and the other goes to a child in a developing nation. (OK, I might not be a merchant of cool, but I am a tech maven, so how could I not pass this along?) (HT: Justin Baeder) [...]
Before signing up to this project, it might be worth having a harder look at the implications of it. As a missionary who works a lot in rural Africa I am seriously underwhelmed by the whole thing. Lingamish has written extensively on the failings of this project here http://lingamish.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/one-laptop-per-child-the-emperors-new-gadget/
Sorry to rain on the parade, but if someone would come up with a one-latrine-per-family, or one-safe-well-per-village project I’d be all for it.
i wonder how many will be bought as gifts for kids vs bought to give to techies. lol
“The price is, obviously, not at the $100 mark yet, but they’re working on it.”
I thought the idea of this Give One/Get One campaign was to raise money by milking (in a good way) the richer American audience, charging more than $100 per ‘top so they can fund further research. The site you linked, however, does make it sound as if they can’t get the price below $200. I guess they plan to make it up in volume production and mass shipping. Would be cool to get one of these for Christmas or Birthday this year.
Hey, this blog is visually exciting. Looks like good content too! Thanks for thinking about OLPC. I’d write more but I need to crank up my laptop…
[...] we had children, I think I would get them one of these… Laptop for Me, Laptop for You from Radical [...]