These days we take technology for granted, almost everyone in the UK has access to a computer and the internet, even if it just using free public services like those at your local library. In fact, a recent survey indicated that people now rate broadband internet access as an essential utility in the home.
How unfortunate it is then to consider that there are still nearly 2 billion children in the developing world with little or no access to technology or a proper education. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) scheme seeks to close the technology gap between the developed world and the developing world.
What Is OLPC?
OLPC is an education project started in 2002 by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. Nicholas experience led him to consider that providing those children in the developing world with the necassary educational tools for a decent standard of learning, would go some way towards solving some of the problems faced by the developing world.
Children are naturally eager to learn, providing a child with a laptop from the OLPC project gives them a chance to achieve their potential and to give them a better future.
Who Makes The Laptops?
Modern laptops would not be fully usable in much of the developing world, and the cost of commercial hardware and software would be prohibitively expensive. As a result, the OLPC project sought to develop a product that would be both low cost (to allow more children to receive a laptop) and suited to some of the harsher environments in which children are learning in the developing world. The end product has been dubbed the XO laptop.
The OLPC "XO" laptop
The XO differs in a number of areas to those laptops available on the high street; from the ground up it has been designed to be low power, low cost and easy to use. It features a special display that costs around $35 dollars to manufacture and can be read clearly in bright sunlight (for places where children are educated outside). The laptops are capable of creating a network with other local XO laptops automatically, meaning there is no need to build a network infrastructure in order for users to share files and documents. The case is specially designed to be easy for a child to carry (and also to absorb a fair amount of punishment without becoming damaged).
Couldn’t This Money Be Better Spent Providing Aid?
The OLPC project believes that the key for a better future is education. The old saying is true; give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime. By providing children with a better class of education there is the hope that these children will grow up towards a more prosperous future for everyone.
The aim for the project has always been to provide these laptops to governments at a cost of $100 per unit. Thus far this goal has not been met, due to both the increased costs of components and the fluctuating value of the US Dollar. However, OLPC aims to be able to produce these laptops as cheaply as possible, and to continue to develop the product in order to achieve the perfect balance between cost and functionality.
How Has The Project Gone So Far?
Estimates thus far put the total number of XO laptops deployed at around 1.3 million units globally, including locations such as Ghana, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. OLPC will continue to develop new solutions and ship them to some of the poorest countries on the planet, as well as continuing to support the current XO product. Expansion of the project is anticipated in Africa and the middle east, specifically targeting such countries as Iraq, Lebanon, Nigeria and Yemen.
What Can I Do?
Anyone can purchase an XO laptop to be deployed to a child in the developing world through Amazon.com here at a cost of $199 US. Your purchase will give a child in the developing world the chance to have a better education and a better future. OLPC is a non profit organisation, your donation will be used purely to produce and deploy an XO laptop, the foundation does not have shareholders to pay dividends to, every penny goes towards development and production of laptops.
Further information on the OLPC foundation can be found at laptop.org
