OLPC: Buy a laptop, donate another

One Laptop Per Child project, intended to provide better education through computers to the poor, announced that the laptops will be on sale for consumers in the United States and Canada. The so-called $100 laptop initiative could not meet early success as initially it would take some $188 to produce one XO laptop and not enough offers have been received to activate mass production.

Considering a fresh approach to the project, the laptops will now be sold under a scheme called ‘Give 1, Get 1.’ According to which when people in the U.S. and Canada spend $399 to buy a laptop for themselves, another will be donated to a needy child, somewhere in a poor country.

The main destinations for shipments of XO Laptops are four countries that are among the poorest of the poor: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti, and Rwanda.

Nicholas Negroponte, the former MIT Media Lab director and founder of the laptop initiative believes that it was important to raise money this way. "I have met with about 30 heads of state. They're all enthusiastic. But there's a huge gulf between a head of state shaking your hand and a minister making a bank transfer," he said.

Selling computers in bulk to governments, which would provide them free of cost to young schoolchildren, is also on the OLPC foundation’s agenda. It website states that Rwanda, Uruguay, Libya and Nigeria have expressed interest in bulk orders of the machines.

According to an OLPC spokesman, the first OLPC laptop, a green and white XO model, is to begin production in November and 120,000 units will be made by the end of this year.

The water-resistant, rubber-sealed machines are said to be child-friendly that are designed keeping in mind the harsh weather and power and networking availabilities in different parts of the world.

They can be powered by pull cords, solar panels, and hand cranks and run 12 hours on one battery charge. The high-resolution screen can be read in direct sunlight.

The XO laptops also have a built-in video camera and custom, open-source software for making music, creating art, playing games, browsing the Web, and word processing.

The Give 1 Get 1 program will run from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26, and will hopefully help popularize the project. To be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis - Customers who place an order for two laptops, online or by phone, will get one in time for Christmas while second one will reach some poor child in a developing country. Half the price will be tax-deductible.