FT: Clever kit to benefit the poor

Clever kit to benefit the poor

By Kevin Allison

Published: December 22 2006 19:29 | Last updated: December 26 2006 15:50

One of the hottest gadgets of 2006 sports a fashionable plastic case, has more than 100Mb of memory, and can connect to the internet straight out of the box – all for about $100.

This breakthrough product is not a Zune, an iPod or some other accessory intended for style-conscious consumers. It is a $100 portable computer intended to change the lives of children in poor countries by allowing them to take their education – quite literally – into their own hands.

One Laptop Per Child initiative (OLPC), a non-profit group, was set up early last year by faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with support from companies including Google, News Corp and AMD. Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC head, says the project is about more than just hardware.

"This is not about teaching computers," he says. "It is about learning, learning [sic] itself. While that may sound abstract, it is not. The mere passion for learning is the most valuable asset a child can have."

The first working prototypes of the machines, which are powered by Linux, the open-source operating system, and are designed to be rugged enough to be used outdoors, were unveiled by Mr Negroponte and Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, at a conference in Tunis last month. Full production is set to begin in the middle of next year.

Early models will probably cost about $140, but Mr Negroponte expects the price to be $100 by late 2008 or early 2009. "Moore's Law alone will bring the price to $100 by late 2008 or early 2009," says Mr Negroponte.

OLPC plans to sell the laptops to governments, which will then distribute the computers to children at a cost of as little as $30-$35 per year per child over five years. The computers will boast stereo speakers, wireless networking and a touchpad mouse, and will be able to do almost anything traditional computers can do, except store large amounts of data.

Eventually, the project hopes to ship about 20 containers of laptops every month, with each container holding 5,000 laptops. The computers will not be unloaded at port, but taken to schools and left with a person who will spend a month teaching students and teachers to use the machines before returning to pick up the next shipment.

"If you do the maths, this takes about 600 people to do 1m machines over 12 months," Mr Negroponte says. "This includes an advance team, school by school, to install internet access, typically via satellite. That point of access can serve as many as 1,000 kids."

Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, says the $100 laptop project could change the economics of education, especially in poor countries.

"Syllabi and curricula become homogenous, because they're driven by the economics of textbooks," he says. Computers connected to the internet could overcome this by breaking students' reliance on curricula built on often-obsolete textbooks, leaving them free to guide their own learning, with teachers assuming the role of facilitators.

It is a shift Prof Juma says could have far-reaching implications. "You could have a generation of people who look to themselves for answers instead of to a higher authority," he says.

Some critics of the project argue that children in poor countries face more pressing concerns than a lack of access to computers. Development efforts, they say, should focus on problems, such as war and drought.

"Of course you need to meet the needs of health, nutrition and clean water," responds Mr Negroponte. "But nobody would ever say that these should be met instead of education."

Could a $100 laptop be making an appearance at a retailer near you? Taiwan's Quanta Computers, which is building the computers for the project, expects to use the experience as a platform to provide cheaper laptops to rich countries.

That could pose a threat to traditional PC makers, which have so far kept their distance from the project.

"All of them are aware of what we are doing, including Michael Dell and Steve Jobs personally," says Mr Negroponte. "We do not compete with any of them. Our goal is to maximise the number of laptops that get into the hands of children. If those are Intel or Dell laptops, that is perfectly fine."

Traditional PC makers, Mr Negroponte says, view children as a market. "We look at them as a mission. Intel told me, 'We both agree that the issue is the next billion users.' I say no, my interest is the last billion, not the next billion."
 

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006

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