I have to admit that the first time I heard about Nicholas Negroponte’s one laptop per child project, aimed at creating $100 laptops what could be distributed among the children of the developing world, I thought he was smoking crack. I mean, just check out the requirements:
# minimal power consumption, with a design target of 2–3 W total power consumption;
# minimal production cost, with a target of $100 per laptop for production runs of millions of units;
# a ‘cool’ look, implying innovative styling in its physical appearance;
# e-book functionality with extremely low power consumption;
# the software provided with the laptop be open source and free software
One hundred dollars? Please! How could they even get an LCD under that price? And wireless access that creates a mesh where there wasn’t a wireless network before? Having it be safe for a child to disassemble? And on, and on, and on…
Well, they’ve done it. The $100 Laptop Project launches this year. I’m glad I was wrong about this, because it there is one single thing that can improve the quality of life will be education, and the access to a wider world that these laptops will give them the opportunity to get just that.