Want one? It's only for developing countries

Peter Vogel

One of the more interesting technology initiatives in recent years should finally achieve the first part of its goal later this year. Sometime in the summer the first of what will likely become millions of inexpensive laptops will find its way into the hands of a child in Rwanda.

By the time the year is out that child will be joined by others in Cambodia, Namibia, and several other countries which have signed on to OLPC, the One Laptop Per Child initiative pioneered by MIT professor and digital technology guru Nicholas Negroponte.

Although the laptops shipping this year won't be acquired at the long-stated goal price of $100, the fact that they've been assembled for around $150 is already a marvel. As production ramps up that lower figure should be achievable.

Negroponte and the OLPC project take the position that any child can benefit from technology, and that this initiative can leapfrog across a broad spectrum of obstacles that otherwise stand in the way of children's education.

OLPC's first-generation laptop, named the XO, is truly a wonder to behold. Built-in wireless networking and basic video conferencing are but two of its features, along with a range of applications from word processing to music synthesis. Yes, at $150; no charge to the child or the family.

Negroponte says today's commercial laptops are simply bloated with non-essential applications and components. The XO is minimalist in appearance and focused on delivering reliable operation in a wide variety of environments.

"Today's laptops have become obese," he noted. "Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways."

Many of the destination countries for XO have unreliable electricity supplies. XO's built-in hand crank generator is rated at 1 to 10: one minute of cranking gets 10 minutes of operation.

Every aspect of the XO is built with limited energy consumption in mind. The full-colour screen, for instance, can be set to lower wattage black and white, and no two- or three-hour laptop battery here: no, the XO battery will provide up to 10 hours of operating time!

Try and find a laptop-battery combination meeting that standard at your nearest Future Shop.

OLPC's Web site www.laptop.org and its associated wiki wiki.laptop.org provide some interesting insight into the project's background. It began at MIT's storied Media Lab in 2005. "The argument for OLPC is simple: many children, especially those in rural parts of developing countries, have so little access to school, in some cases just a tree, that building schools and training teachers is only one way, perhaps the slowest way, to alleviate the situation."

Such is the rationale presented by OLPC and its project team.

"Poor children lack opportunity, not capacity for learning. By providing laptops to every child without cost to the child, we bring the poor child the same opportunities for learning that wealthy families bring to their children."

From that perspective the OLPC team, along with a number of high-powered corporate sponsors, set about creating a highly portable, rugged, easy-to-use, and cheap laptop computer, one that its owners could even repair if need be.

According to OLPC's own sales pitch for the XO's specifications, it is "Linux-based, with a dual-mode display, both a full-colour, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3 times the resolution.

"The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports.

"The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbours, creating an ad hoc local area network.

"The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do almost everything except store huge amounts of data."

Basic though it may be, the XO has a certain "cool" quotient. In fact there has been speculation that the unit might be available to customers outside the target countries. There has been talk of a subsidy pricing model for developed countries, at, say, a price of $300, twice the current cost, the difference being used to fund an additional computer elsewhere.

For now, though, there is little likelihood of the XO appearing outside developing nations that have partnered through their Ministry of Education with the OLPC consortium.

Whether the full OLPC initiative pans out remains to be seen. Certainly there are critics, some arguing that the true cost of the machine will be closer to $1,000 by the time training, maintenance, and support are figured into the equation.

Peter Vogel is a Physics and Computer Sciences teacher at Notre Dame Regional Secondary School (www.ndrs.org). Suggestions and comments may be sent via e-mail to peterv@portal.ca.