14 DAY TRIAL // The One Laptop Per Child project is scheduled to arrive to America during 2008. The low-performance, low-cost XO notebooks will be distributed to some of the United States school students. The OLPC initiative originates in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and it was permanently criticized to have forgotten the needs of the United States students.
Nicholas Negroponte's charity foundation aims at delivering low-cost (sub-$200) miniature notebooks for the children who live in the developing countries. The initiative comes to bridge what is known as "the digital divide" - the growing precipice between the industrialized countries and the poor ones in terms of technology.
According to Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman and founder of the OLPC foundation, OLPC America already has a director and a chairman, and will have its headquarters situated in Washington D.C. "The whole thing is merging right now. It will be state-centric. We're trying to do it through the 50 state governments," he said.
There are three major considerations that have significantly contributed to the project's availability on the American territory. First of all, the OLPC foundation quoted the fact that America has its own poor children, too. The second reason is more down-to-earth and mentions building a critical mass of XO notebooks to encourage the software development. Last, but not least, there is the educational aspect: American children will be able to better communicate with the students in the poor countries.
"For one thing, we are doing something patriotic, if you will, after all we are and there are poor children in America. The second thing we're doing is building a critical mass. The numbers are going to go up, people will make more software, it will steer a larger development community," Negroponte said.
Until now, the project was not considered useful in the US, as there was a major "difference in need". While American people spend an average $10,000 per year per child in primary education, developing countries can not afford more than $20. However, Negroponte believes that America has its own poor kids that can not afford state-of-the-art technology. Although America was never the main focus of the project, it has been in the plans.
"To have the United Sates be the only country that's not in the OLPC agenda would be kind of ridiculous," Negroponte said.