Seeker Blog

It’s an education project, not a laptop project — Nicholas Negroponte

Negroponte says the foundation plans to begin manufacturing late 2006, early 2007 - when they have prepaid orders for the first one million laptops. Nigeria appears to have placed the first order - though it isn’t clear whether the order is for $1 million or for one million laptops.

From the Wiki, an excellent place to explore the $100 laptop project in depth:

This is the wiki for the One Laptop per Child association. The mission of this non-profit association is to develop a low-cost laptop—the “$100 Laptop”—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world’s children. Our goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves.

Why do children in developing nations need laptops? 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.

From the FAQ:

How is it possible to get the cost so low?

* First, by dramatically lowering the cost of the display. The first-generation machine will have a novel, dual-mode display that represents improvements to the LCD displays commonly found in inexpensive DVD players. These displays can be used in high-resolution black and white in bright sunlight—all at a cost of approximately $35.

* Second, we will get the fat out of the systems. Today’s laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways.

* Third, we will market the laptops in very large numbers (millions), directly to ministries of education, which can distribute them like textbooks.

Why is it important for each child to have a computer? What’s wrong with community-access centers?

One does not think of community pencils—kids have their own. They are tools to think with, sufficiently inexpensive to be used for work and play, drawing, writing, and mathematics. A computer can be the same, but far more powerful. Furthermore, there are many reasons it is important for a child to own something—like a football, doll, or book—not the least of which being that these belongings will be well-maintained through love and care.

What about connectivity? Aren’t telecommunications services expensive in the developing world?

When these machines pop out of the box, they will make a mesh network of their own, peer-to-peer. This is something initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. We are also exploring ways to connect them to the backbone of the Internet at very low cost.

What can a $1000 laptop do that the $100 version can’t?

Not much. The plan is for the $100 Laptop to do almost everything. What it will not do is store a massive amount of data.