1st April, 2008

CHOE BRERETON

Nicholas Negroponte had a dream to supply children in the developing world - those in cities and remote places alike - with a powerful education tool that most in the developed world have relatively open access to.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) non-profit organisation was his subsequent brainchild. Negroponte’s answer to the challenge of education is the XO laptop.

The XO is built specifically for children in the developing world and is designed with a number of well-adapted features. It has a dual-mode display; first as a conventional colour LED laptop and then as a sunlight readable black-and-white e-book as most of the target children have classes out in the open.

The laptop is human-powered. It does not require electricity to run on but can be hand charged via a crank, pedal or pull-cord or recharged by a directly connected solar panel. It’s hardy, durable, built for humid conditions and a triple changer as it functions as a games device, a laptop and an e-book.

The software is not your standard Windows either. The OLPC website calls it ‘free and open-source software’ which apparently can be revised by the children themselves should any of them have a flair for programming.

The reasoning? Negroponte wants the software to be able to grow as the child grows. That means that both children and their teachers can modify the software to suit their needs. Applications include a web browser, a document viewer, a word processing application, multimedia; graphics, toolkits, a debugger and much more.
But by far the best thing about this scheme is that for $200, you can buy a laptop for a child, which will be delivered to them in pristine condition.

Take a look at the design, the machine looks brilliant...I want one!

~ www.laptop.org

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