The $100 Laptop Initiative

Nicholas Negroponte is brilliant and delightful. In addition to many other projects and passions, he’s been connecting the unwired world, especially kids in Africa, with computers as far back as the 80s. And his vision is powerful and strong: a laptop for every child, an education initiative that gives power tools and access to children everywhere- digital literacies, access and creation. A completely powerful, storage, processing machine for $100 or less. One that can be hand cranked in areas where there is no power, where the screen can be read indoors or out, as a traditional foldover display screen or flipped to act as a tablet PC or console. Linux based, leveraging open source technologies (read no windows support required), embedded mesh wireless access. They seem to have though of everything. And it’s a cool green iPoddy-iconish thing.

And he’s doing it. In 2007, they aim to ship 5 million pieces- a little more than $100, but the price should come down. The manufacturer, Quanta, currently produces about a third of the world’s laptops, so this production claim has legitimacy.