One Laptop Per Child

While I was reading through the articles for this week, I couldn't help but think about and appreciate One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). You might have heard of them before, but in my eyes, they are a pretty big deal.

Essentially, OLPC aims at providing each child a laptop to provide access to information out on the Interwebs and supplement his/her learnings within the classroom. But these are no ordinary laptops, these laptops are sold for about $200 each and a champion of frugal engineering.

OLPC takes out the fat that normal laptops have and stick with a basic Linux-OS. They have found a way to engineer a cheap display that swivels (easier to share with your classmate!). Not only did they make the product cost effective, they have made the laptop durable, light, mobile, adjust in the sunlight, able to connect online and also create their own LAN.

One takeaway I had from the IDEO reading was the importance of implementation and distribution channels. Today, OLPC markets to governments and directly distributes the laptops similarly to textbooks. While OLPC's mission and laptops have benefited 42 countries, it makes me wonder if there is a better way for schools to get access to these laptops. If governments are unwilling to partner directly, even if local schools plea for it, OLPC has a policy that governments must want it first. I feel like this places a huge constraint on OLPC's impact-especially in areas where governments are unlikely to want better education for children in their nations. Is there a better way, perhaps involving schools and non-profits, NGOs, etc. to distribute these laptops? Or is government buy-in critical in OLPC's operations?

Their site and videos are worth checking out: http://one.laptop.org/about/mission