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Peru Distributes '$100 Laptop'

One Laptop per Child effort faces on-the-ground test

By Laila Weir,  Newser User

Posted Apr 24, 2008 3:18 PM CDT
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(Newser) – One Laptop per Child got a bumpy start, with the “$100 laptop” soaring to $188, for-profit competitors snatching customers, and developing countries hesitating to buy. But the true test for the nonprofit comes now, as Peru prepares to send 486,500 computers to its poorest schoolchildren. The country faces daunting obstacles, but rural kids testing the laptops are enthusiastic, reports Technology Review.

Educating teachers to use the computers is among the biggest hurdles. Still, watchers hope that by bringing outside information, like digital books, to far-flung villages where printed books are rare, the laptops will help kids improve their skills and broaden their horizons. That, in turn, will let subsistence farmers’ children “think about being engineers, designing computers, being teachers," said a government official.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit, gestures in front of an image of an early version of the $100 laptop at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008.
Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop per Child non-profit, gestures in front of an image of an early version of the $100 laptop at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Wednesday,...   (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
This image provided by the One Laptop per Child Foundation shows its XO laptop. The City Council of Birmingham, Ala., reached a plan on March 4 to buy 15,000 of the machines for schoolchildren.
This image provided by the One Laptop per Child Foundation shows its XO laptop. The City Council of Birmingham, Ala., reached a plan on March 4 to buy 15,000 of the machines for schoolchildren.   (AP Photo/One Laptop Per Child)
In this Dec. 12, 2007 file photo, Exadith Solis, 8, looks up while using her XO laptop in Arahuay, an Andean hilltop village in Peru.
In this Dec. 12, 2007 file photo, Exadith Solis, 8, looks up while using her "XO" laptop in Arahuay, an Andean hilltop village in Peru.   (AP Photo/Martin Mejia, file)
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How One Laptop per Child scaled back its initial ambitions
MIT Technology Review

One Laptop per (US) Child
NPR

One Laptop per Child running Windows
Reuters

The One Laptop per Child site
laptop.org

 
philanthropy • Peru • developing countries • One Laptop Per Child • XO laptop

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