One_Laptop_per_Child

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One Laptop per Child

The One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is an U.S. non-profit organization set up to oversee the creation of a cheap, affordable educational device for use in the developing world. Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop to promote children's education in developing nations. OLPC has generated a great deal of interest in the Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) and One to one computing fields of research. One Laptop Per Child is a 501(c)(3) organization registered in Delaware, USA.

OLPC is funded by member organizations, including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. Each company has donated two million dollars. While OLPC is 'not for profit', the XO-1 manufacturers including many members are expected to receive 5-10% profit from sales of the unit.

The organization is chaired by Nicholas Negroponte. Other principals of the company include Jim Gettys, Vice-President of Software Engineering and Charles Kane, President and Chief Operating Officer.

Mission

The goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end, OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise unavailable technological learning opportunities.

OLPC lists five core principles:

Child ownership
Low ages. Both hardware and software are designed for elementary school children ages 6-12.
Saturation
Connection
Free and open source

History

OLPC is based on constructionist learning theories pioneered by Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, and also on the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte’s book Being Digital. These three individuals plus the several sponsor organizations are active participants in OLPC.

Many concepts preceding the OLPC project were discussed and explored at a number of conferences. The 2B1 Conference, held in 1997 at the Media Lab brought together educators from developing countries around the world to "break down world barriers of race, age, gender, language, class, economics and geography." The most immediate outcome of that conference was the establishment of the Nation1 project and the Junior Summit, held the following year, although many of the sessions at 2B1 helped inform OLPC.

Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005 and were created by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab. The OLPC project gained much more attention when Nicholas Negroponte and Kofi Annan unveiled a working prototype of the Children's Machine 1 (CM1) on November 16 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia. Negroponte showed two prototypes of the CM1 laptop at the second phase of the World Summit: a non working physical model and a tethered version using an external board and separate keyboard. The device shown was a rough prototype using a standard development board. Negroponte estimated that the screen alone required three more months of development. The first working prototype was demonstrated at the project's Country Task Force Meeting on May 23 2006. The production version is expected to have a larger display screen in the same size package. The laptops were originally scheduled to be available by early 2007, but production actually began in November, 2007.

At the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) announced it would back the laptop. UNDP released a statement saying they would work with OLPC to deliver “technology and resources to targeted schools in the least developed countries”.

The project originally aimed for a price of 100 United States dollars. In May 2006, Negroponte told the Red Hat's annual user summit: “It is a floating price. We are a nonprofit organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe $140. That is a start price, but what we have to do is with every release make it cheaper and cheaper— we are promising that the price will go down.”

The OLPC project had stated that a consumer version of the XO laptop was not planned. However, the project has established the xogiving.org website for outright donations and for a "Give 1 Get 1" offer valid from November 12, 2007 for two weeks, but this was extended through December 31, 2007. The "Give 1 Get 1" offer's required donation of $399 has a tax-deductible portion of $200. The fair market value of the XO laptop is placed at $199 by the OLPC Foundation.

Mary Lou Jepsen was CTO until her resignation at the end of 2007 to found a new company, Pixel Qi, to continue the development and commercialization of ideas from the XO.

Intel was a member of the association for a brief period in 2007. It resigned its membership on 3 January 2008, citing disagreements with requests from OLPC's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, for Intel to stop dumping their Classmate PCs.

Ivan Krstić (former OLPC Director of Security Architecture) resigned in late February, 2008 because, he said, learning wasn’t what the OLPC was about even for Nicholas Negroponte (see quote below).

On April 22, 2008, Walter Bender, who was the former President of Software and Content for the OLPC project, stepped down from his post and left OLPC to found Sugar Labs Bender reportedly had a disagreement with Nicholas Negroponte, the pioneer of the project itself, about the future of the OLPC and their future partnerships. Nicholas Negroponte also showed some doubt about the exclusive use of open source software for the project and made suggestions supporting a move towards adding Windows XP which Microsoft was in the process of porting over to the XO hardware. Microsoft's Windows XP, however, is not seen by some as a sustainable operating system. Microsoft announced on May 16, 2008 that Windows XP would be offered as an option on XO-1 laptops and possibly be able to dual boot alongside Linux.

Charles Kane became the new President and Chief Operating Officer of the OLPC Association on May 2, 2008.

Technology

The XO-1, previously known as the "$100 Laptop" or "Children's Machine", is an inexpensive laptop computer designed to be distributed to children in developing countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge, and opportunities to "explore, experiment and express themselves" (constructionist learning). The laptop is developed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization, and manufactured by the Taiwanese computer company, Quanta Computer.

The rugged, low-power computers use flash memory instead of a hard drive, run the GNU/Linux operating system and use the Sugar user interface. Mobile ad-hoc networking based on the 802.11s wireless mesh network protocol allows students to collaborate on Activities and to share Internet access from one connection. The wireless networking has much greater range than typical consumer laptops. The XO-1 has also been designed to be lower cost and much longer lived than typical laptops.

Rumors about an XO-1 laptop running a modified version of Windows XP circulated, and it was revealed in May of 2008 that Windows XP will be available for an additional cost of 10 dollars per laptop.

Lee Felsenstein criticized the centralized, top-down, design and distribution of the OLPC, calling it "imperialistic”.

Distribution

The laptops are sold to governments, to be distributed through the ministries of education with the goal of distributing “one laptop per child”. The laptops will be loaned to students, similar to textbooks, and ultimately remain the property of the issuing local government. The laptops include an anti-theft system which requires laptops to make contact with a country specific server over a network or to a school-level server that was manually loaded with 21 day long cryptographically secured "leases" from a USB key for un-networked schools, or the laptops will be locked until a "lease" is provided to it. The operating system and software is localized to the languages of the participating countries.

Pricing in 2007 started at US$188 with a goal of reaching the $100 mark in 2008. Approximately 500 developer boards (Alpha-1) were distributed in mid-2006; 875 working prototypes (Beta 1) were delivered in late 2006; 2400 Beta-2 machines were distributed at the end of February 2007; full-scale production started November 6, 2007. Quanta Computer, the project's contract manufacturer, said in February 2007 that it had confirmed orders for one million units. They indicated they could ship 5 million to 10 million units in 2007 because seven nations had committed to buy the XO-1 for their schoolchildren: Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, and Uruguay. Quanta plans to offer machines very similar to the XO machine on the open market.

Give 1 Get 1 distribution & order fulfillment issue

The OLPC project had initially stated that no consumer version of the XO laptop was planned. Later, however, the project established the laptopgiving.org website for direct donations and ran a "Give 1 Get 1" offer starting on November 12 2007 that was initially scheduled to run for only two weeks. The offer was extended until December 31 2007. With a donation of $399 (plus shipping cost extra) to the OLPC "Give 1 Get 1" (G1G1) program, for which they would receive an XO-1 laptop of their own and have another sent on their behalf to a child in a developing country. The addresses for delivery of the "Get 1" laptop were restricted to the United States, its territories, and Canada. Some 83,500 donors participated in the program. A significant minority (at least 10%) of these had not received their "Get One" laptop a couple months after their donation because of order fulfillment and shipment issues within both OLPC and the outside contractors it had hired to manage those aspects of the program. This led many donors to question whether OLPC's management and staff were capable of successfully managing the much larger task of distribution of laptops to the developing world. The "Give 1 Get 1" donation of $399 had a tax-deductible portion of $200 under US tax code as the XO-1 laptop delivered to the donor was valued at $199 by the OLPC Foundation.

G1G1v2

A second Give1Get1 program has been announced to be run through Amazon.com, starting November 17. This partnership was chosen specifically to solve the distribution issues of the prior G1G1 event. In addition, the price to consumers will stay the same, at $399 USD.

Summary of laptop orders

Year	Confirmed number (approximate)	Date confirmed	Purchaser
2007	100,000	October 2007	Uruguay
	15,000	November 14 2007	Birmingham, Alabama, United States
	270,000	December 1 2007	Peru
	50,000	December 1 2007	Mexico, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim
	50,000	November 3 2007	Ethiopia by Romano Prodi
	167,000 (half to be distributed to developing world)	January 5 2008	"Give One, Get One" program
2008	65,000	May 29 2008	Colombia
Total	717,000

Complete List

Currently participating countries

In October 2007, Uruguay placed an order for 100,000 laptops, making Uruguay the first country to purchase a full order of laptops. An additional 200,000 more laptops should be ordered by 2009 to cover all public school children between 6 and 12 years old.

The following countries are currently participating in the project, or are receiving laptops from the Give One Get One program.

Africa

Ethiopia (G1G1 pilot + commitment for 50,000 laptops by Romano Prodi)
Rwanda (G1G1 pilot)

America

Colombia (65,000 laptops bought by the State of Caldas)
Haiti (G1G1 pilot)
Mexico (50,000 laptops bought by billionaire Carlos Slim)
Peru (270,000 laptops bought, now receiving laptops)
United States of America (15,000 laptops bought by Birmingham, Alabama)
Uruguay (100,000 laptops bought, now receiving laptops)

Asia

Afghanistan (G1G1 pilot)
Cambodia (G1G1 pilot)
Mongolia (G1G1 pilot, now receiving 10,000 laptops)

Pacific

Papua New Guinea (Gaire, Dreikikir)

Peru

First results are mostly positive after evaluation of pilot phase in Peru which was eight months long. The children learned quickly how to use the laptops, started to communicate more among themselves and turned to be more pleasant to each other. The parents agreed the units help their children to receive more education. However, the pilot revealed the children miss a built-in English learning software and a dictionary.

Uruguay

First real (non-pilot) deployment of the OLPC technology happened in Uruguay in December 2007.

Papua New Guinea

First trials include Satellite base station (RICS) in Ku Band sponsored by the SPC Secretariat of the Pacific Community. There are 15 other sites planned for the Pacific in 2009. RICS can be solar powered. Classroom servers also tested.

Interested countries

In addition to the participating countries listed above, small-scale pilot projects took place or are currently taking place in the following countries (see Google map of OLPC pilot projects):

Africa - Middle-East

Iraq (Najmi)
Nigeria (Abuja)
Tanzania (Dar es Salam)
Yemen (Sana'a)

America

Brazil (Porto Alegre, São Paulo)
Suriname (Paramaribo)

Asia

India (Khairat-Dhangarwada village school)
Nepal (Lalitpur)
Pakistan (Rawalpindi)
Philippines (Manila)
Thailand (Ban Samkha)

Nigeria

Nigeria was the first country to announce an order for one million laptop computers, in July 2006. Since then, Nigeria had an election, and the deal has not materialized.

Lagos Analysis Corp., also called Lancor, a Lagos, Nigeria-based company, sued OLPC in the end of 2007 for $20 million, claiming that the computer's keyboard design was stolen from a Lancor patented device. The amount of damages is based upon an order by the Nigerian government for one million of the laptops. Lancor decided that, since their keyboards retail for $19.95, the $20 million is the price for one million keyboards. Lancor obtained a temporary injunction against the Nigerian sale in December of 2007, and the country's government announced that it is now reviewing its order. OLPC responded by claiming that they had not sold any multi-lingual keyboards in the design claimed by Lancor, and that Lancor had misrepresented and concealed material facts before the court. These claims by the OLPC, in an attempt to dismiss the Nigerian lawsuit, were rejected by the Federal High Court. OLPC is now appealing the order of the court.

In 2007, XO laptops in Nigeria were reported to contain pornographic material belonging to children partaking in the OLPC Program. In response, OLPC made plans for adding content filters. The OLPC foundation maintained the position that such issues were societal, not laptop related. Similar responses have led some to suggest the OLPC takes an indifferent stance concerning this issue. According to Wayan Vota Senior Director at Inveneo and founder of the OLPC News (unaffiliated with OLPC), "The use of computers to look at porn is [a] social problem, not a hardware one.... Children have to be taught what's good and what's bad, based on the cultural context.

India

India's Ministry of Human Resource Development rejected the initiative, saying “it would be impossible to justify an expenditure of this scale on a debatable scheme when public funds continue to be in inadequate supply for well-established needs listed in different policy documents” and later stated plans to make laptops at $10 each for schoolchildren. Two designs submitted to the ministry from a final year engineering student of Vellore Institute of Technology and a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore reportedly describe a laptop that could be produced for "$47 per laptop" for even small volumes. No technical specifications or development timelines for the $10 laptop have been released.

Nepal

In Nepal, things are moving swiftly at the Bishwamitra Journal and Bashuki Journal pilots. Open Learning Exchange Nepal is the lead implementer for the OLPC pilots in Nepal, working together with Nepal's Department of Education.

Thailand

Thailand under prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra had committed to the project. After the 2006 coup d'état the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology said that the laptop will be evaluated with pilot projects before proceeding cautiously.

Argentina

Originally, the Argentinian government was promised the OLPC laptops for less than 100 USD with no strings attached. As the final prototypes ended up costing almost twice as much and requires the government to commit to the OLPC program for 10 years, it attracted criticism. The funding from this project is expected to come from the Inter-American Development Bank (I.A.D.B.), leading to more controversy.

Other interested countries

The following countries have shown interest in the past, but no concrete projects have resulted up to now:

Africa: Egypt, Libya, Tunisia
America: Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic
Europe: Greece

Criticism

Controversy regarding mission

OLPC's dedication to "Free and open source" was questioned with their May 15, 2008 announcement that large scale purchasers would be offered the choice to add an extra cost, special version of the proprietary Windows XP OS developed by Microsoft alongside the regular, free and open Linux/Sugar OS. James Utzschneider, from Microsoft, said that initially only one operating system could be chosen. OLPC, however, said that future OLPC work would enable XO-1 laptops to dual boot either the free and open Linux/Sugar OS or the proprietary Microsoft Windows XP. Mr. Negroponte further said that "OLPC will sell Linux-only and dual-boot, and will not sell Windows-only [XO-1 laptops]". OLPC released the first test firmware enabling XO-1 dual-boot on July 3, 2008.

OLPC's stated ethos that "It's an education project, not a laptop project" was contradicted according to OLPC's former Director of Security Architecture Ivan Krstić who said on May 13, 2008 "I quit when Nicholas told me — and not just me — that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his (Negroponte's) mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there; to say anything about learning would be presumptuous, and so he doesn’t want OLPC to have a software team, a hardware team, or a deployment team going forward." See Other viewpoints for additional statements from Negroponte and Kane on this topic.

Other discussions question whether OLPC laptops should be designed to promote anonymity or to facilitate government tracking of the laptop. A recent New Scientist article criticized Bitfrost's P_THEFT security option, which allows each laptop to be configured to transmit an individualized, non-repudiable digital signature to a central server at most once each day to remain functioning.

Environmental issues

The project has received criticism due to concerns over environmental and health impacts of hazardous materials found in other computers. The OLPC has asserted that it is aiming to use as many environmentally friendly materials as it can; that the laptop and all OLPC-supplied accessories will be fully compliant with the EU's Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS); and that the laptop will use an order of magnitude less power than the typical consumer notebooks available as of 2007, minimizing the environmental burden of power generation.

UN conference in Tunisia

At the United Nations conference in Tunisia, several African officials, most notably Marthe Dansokho of Cameroon and Mohammed Diop of Mali, voiced suspicions towards the motives of the OLPC project and claimed that the project was using an overly U.S. mindset that presented solutions not applicable to specifically African problems. Dansokho said the project demonstrated misplaced priorities, stating that clean water and schools were more important for African women, who, he stated, would not have time to use the computers to research new crops to grow. Diop specifically attacked the project as an attempt to exploit the governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions of machines.

John Wood

John Wood, founder of Room to Read, emphasizes affordability and scalability over high-tech solutions. While in favor of the One Laptop per Child initiative for providing education to children in the developing world at a cheaper rate, he has pointed out that a $2,000 library can serve 400 children, costing just $5 a child to bring access to a wide range of books in the local languages (such as Khmer or Nepali) and English; also, a $10,000 school can serve 400–500 children ($20–$25 a child). According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for education in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.

Ivan Krstić

Mr. Negroponte, when asked by an interviewer about this statement, responded saying:

Around the same time, Nicholas Negroponte and Charles Kane made statements explaining OLPC's decision to enable XO-1 laptops to dual-boot either open source Fedora or proprietary Microsoft Windows XP:

Future

On May 20, 2008 OLPC unveiled its plans for the 2nd generation XO. The XO-2 (or XOXO) is targeted for 2010 at the cost of $75. So far only a few details were unveiled. One is that it will consist of two multitouch-sensitive displays, and other is that can be used as a normal laptop (having one of the screens as a keyboard) or an e-book (each screen displaying one page).