Low-Cost Laptop: A Redesigned Computer for the World's Children

If you're not aware of the One Laptop per Child [1] effort, you should be, if only because the rest of the world clearly is. And don't stop at reading what the One Laptop per Child Foundation has to say about it; read this article [2] about it, and search "olpc," and you'll soon be an expert.

I attended a meeting today, May 20, 2008, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Nicholas Negroponte and his OLPC team discussed their current efforts and the next-generation device. (On one side of me sat a colleague from Maine; on the other was a fellow from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's Education Ministry.) Here is some of what was announced:

• The next iteration of the OLPC XO computer will be released in 2010.
• It will work both in Sugar, the open source operating system on the first-generation XO, and on Windows XP. (Microsoft has reduced the price of XP to $3 per license to make it possible for OLPC to keep costs low.)
• The screen will be much improved.
• The overall format will be like an e-book -- folding, with two touch screens (each screen will behave somewhat like the iPhone) -- and a virtual keyboard will be available.
• The target cost is $75.
• The discontinued Give One Get One program, in which buyers donate a laptop to a child in a developing nation when they purchase their own, will resume.

In 2000, the European Union designated global distribution of XO laptops as a Millennium Development Goal to help reduce world poverty. How will the world change when every student ages 6-12 in, say, Uruguay, as well as every teacher, has a laptop? Will that make a difference to your school? What are your thoughts about the porting of Sugar into Windows XP? Does the apparent move from open source concern you?

When I spoke to Negroponte before the session began today, he described responses to the OLPC as resembling an "anti-bell curve" -- no one is in the middle. They either love it, or they hate it. Go take a look and share your thoughts. It is the future.