One Laptop Per Child – Where Can this Take Us?

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has a mission – to empower the world's poorest children through education.  The primary methodology is to provide every child with a laptop computer to help them learn.  Yes, every child – in the world!  The

good news is that this is happening right now.  According to the project website, worldwide over 2.4 million children and teachers have XO laptops.

OLPC is a project managed by the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPCA) with support from its partner the OLPC Foundation (OLPCF).  Both are U.S. non-profit organizations set up to oversee the creation of affordable educational devices for use primarily in the developing world.

The XO-1 laptop itself, perhaps more aptly called a “subnotebook,” is manufactured for OLPC by Quanta Computer, a Taiwanese company that is the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world with Apple, HP, and Dell among its customers.  The XO-1 is designed as a rugged, low-power device using flash memory with a variant of Red Hat Fedora Linux as their operating system.  The devices use WiFi “mesh networking” and operate with multiple machines wirelessly connected to a router or other access point.  There is a more

current XO-4 version that is in use and a tablet version using Android OS ready for sale at some WalMart stores for $150.  It is likely that the project will shift its focus toward more tablet distribution.

Dive into some of the press covering the OLPC effort and you will find some truly amazing stories.  From Armenia to Nicaragua to Uruguay, the impact of these devices is already profound for those communities where they are deployed.  The effort in Uruguay is actually the first instance where a national government has committed to universal distribution in its nation.

It makes you wonder what we could do in the United States with a commitment to provide One Laptop Per Child here at home.

Distribution of OLPC devices