A $100 Laptop May Soon Be a Reality

In Africa, Asia, and South America, residents often lack access to basic necessities such as electricity and medical care, much less the technological resources to educate their children. And though deploying millions of inexpensive computers throughout the developing world might seem like a pipe dream, a nonprofit organization called One Laptop per Child (OLPC), is coming close to making this ambitious goal a reality.

A project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab OLPC has developed a laptop computer with a target price of just $100 (though that price point hasn't been finalized as of this article). Designed specifically for children in developing nations

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As many developing nations lack a consistent, regular supply of electricity, the laptop will feature some sort of human-powered mechanism that could take the form of a crank or lever so students and teachers can manually generate power. And to help address the absence of a telecommunications infrastructure in many parts of the globe, the laptops have been designed to create a peer-to-peer network with one another, enabling each classroom to have its own local network.

Helping OLPC solve networking issues in the developing world falls on Michail Bletsas , an electrical and computer engineer by trade, and now the organization's Chief Connectivity Officer. Though Bletsas is primarily concerned with advising developing nations as to how best create a network infrastructure, he has keen insights into just about every aspect of the project.

Via techsoup

Why is this good? well its a kind of stupid question, other than to say, we don't want to live in a world that has an ever increasing digital divide.

we cannot afford to have a world of digital haves and have nots...

Necessity the mother of invention

what we are doing with the laptops is making sure that when you deploy them in a school or in a community -- even if there is no network connectivity — the laptops form a network. Now, if one of the kids gets some kind of (Internet) connectivity, it becomes easier for the rest of the kids pick up connectivity, because the laptops are already forming a network.

I think that the good thing about selling them (the laptops) to governments is if the government makes such a massive investment to buy a million units, they would be willing to spend a little bit more money — a few more million dollars — to make sure that there is some kind of connectivity. In a lot of places in the developing world, unless you are going to work with the government, there is no way that you are going to jump-start connectivity because of monopoly reasons and all sorts of competitive anomalies.

One of my main responsibilities is to give governments options for setting up an (network) infrastructure as quickly and inexpensively as possible. And that's why I'm in this position, because I have done it, personally, before. That's how I got involved with this project.

One laptop per child wiki