One Laptop per Child

The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been created. (See the official project website laptop.org.) Note that there is a comprehensive description of the project in the Wikipedia.

The hardware

The Green Machine prototype, styled by Design Continuum, was unveiled at WSIS, Tunisia by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Nicholas Negroponte.

The Green Machine with crank

Fuse-product has developed some recent prototypes: the Blue Machine and the Yellow Machine.

The Blue Machine

The Yellow Machine

We are also zeroing in on the hardware specification for the first generation machine.

The software

We are committed to the principle of Open Source for this project. Please refer to our manifesto: OLPC on open source software.

Developing software for this machine is very straight forward, though there are development issues you should be aware of. Our partner in software development is Red Hat. There is a Fedora Project for OLPC, where you can get the software and join mailing lists.

We have begun an OLPC software task list. Please help us refine this list.

Discussion of Instant Messaging Challenges lays a framework for thinking about the different challenges facing the use of instant messaging applications as they exist today on the $100 laptop. Those issues will need to be overcome if instant messaging is to be usable within the environments in which the $100 laptop will be deployed.

Discussion of eBook feature set is a page in which traditional and nontraditional features are discussed both in abstract and in relation to the different eBook readers out there.

Educational content

OLPC is based on "constructionist" theories of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte's book 'Being Digital'. Some background on our approach can be gleaned from David Cavallo's essay, "Models for growth—towards fundamental change in learning environments".

Launch plans

The laptops will be sold to governments and issued to children by schools on a basis of "one laptop per child." Initial discussions have been held with China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, and Thailand. In addition, a modest allocation of machines will be used to seed developer communities in a number of other countries. A commercial version of the machine will be explored in parallel.

There are a series of pages in this wiki dedicated to OLPC Thailand. Similar pages from other potential launch countries (OLPC Brasil, OLPC Argentina, OLPC Egypt, OLPC Nigeria, OLPC India, OLPC China, and OLPC Massachusetts) will follow.

Getting involved

There is a page in this wiki dedicated to Getting involved in OLPC and an OLPC Idea Pool.

FAQ

The official FAQ is on the project website, but please feel free to pose additional questions here: OLPC FAQ.

Myths

• The laptop does not have internal storage such as a hard drive. False: The laptop has 500MB of flash memory similar to the inexpensive thumb drives sold at many computer stores.

• The laptop isn't powerful enough to run modern 3D games and other resource heavy programs such as video editing software. Falsehood: That's not the purpose of this laptop. It is designed to be an inexpensive way for people of limited means to use a computer for such things as internet and simple educational software.