Tuesday, October 30, 2007

$100 Laptop: One Laptop per Child , first orders

Uruguay buys first '$100 laptops' (from BBC news)

The laptop was designed to be used in developing countries.

The first official order for the so-called "$100 laptop" has been placed by the government of Uruguay. The South American country has bought 100,000 of the machines for schoolchildren aged six to 12. A further 300,000 may be purchased to provide a machine for every child in the country by 2009.

The order will be a boost for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organisation behind the project which has admitted difficulties getting concrete orders.

"I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written," Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the organisation, recently told the New York Times.

(Interested in more about the program, read on).