One Laptop Per Child
Written by Jordon Mears on August 23, 2006
I have been following this project for a while and if you don't know what it is I encourage you to read more about it at their website. Basically they are trying to design and produce a laptop composed of durable yet cheap materials that can be mass produced, so they can give them out (or sell them cheaply to governments) around the world. It looks like they are set to move between five to seven million units in 2007. Their aim is to hit a $100 price tag per laptop.
Each laptop is water resistant and features a 10:1 crank charged battery (one minute of cranking yields ten minutes of power). It will have a basic Linux based operating system with just the basics, to be used for network communication (Web, Email, etc) and document viewing and modification (text, spreadsheet, etc). The laptop will use flash memory instead of hard drives and base network communication on a distributed network, so that if you get a laptop in range of another one they will be able to share data and build larger and further reaching networks based on how many laptops that can be stringed together. This will allow intercommunication at least on some level for even the most remote locations.
I chatted with some of the people involved on IRC for a little while and they seem very technology focused. They are working hard to get the hardware and software working together so they can give these units out for testing. Which makes it a little difficult to find opportunities to help outside of the realm of hard-core programming. I think as they get this project further along they will be able to outreach to more volunteer opportunities; the Getting involved in OLPC gives some ideas but is not complete.
It will be exciting to see this project develop.
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