The "one-hundred dollar laptop" is
designed for use by schoolchildren
in developing countries.
The ambitious project to provide low-cost laptop computers to poor children around the world is about to take a small step forward. More than 500 children in Thailand are expected to receive the machines in October and November for quality testing and debugging.
The One Laptop Per Child program, which began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab and now is a separate nonprofit organization, hopes to deploy 5 million to 7 million machines in Thailand, Nigeria, Brazil and Argentina in 2007.
Thailand's government is expected to buy 1 million in the first year.
Walter Bender, a Media Lab founder who serves as One Laptop Per Child's president of software and content, said the organization still is talking with Indian officials and non-governmental agencies.
"While 'India' will not be part of the year-one launch, with 25 percent of the world's children, it is within our mission to work with India down the road," Bender said in an e-mail this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment