Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC project is taking up speed with selected manufacturer Quanta Computer now having started the test production of the low-cost laptop intended for students and children in developing countries. Initial test run outputs should be available next month. Quanta has earlier selected its new plant in Changshu, China to produce the computer and benefit from up to 20% lower labor costs at that site.
The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization set up to oversee the project and construction of the USD100 laptop. Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.
OLPC is funded by a number of sponsor organizations including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES Global, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. Each of these companies has donated two million dollars.
After India in September announced that it is going to develop his own low cost computer, the project got a boost with Libya placing an order for 1.2 million laptops.
Quanta Computer’s president Michael Wang has set a shipment goal of 10 million units for the USD100 notebook project over a period of 12 months starting from the first quarter of 2007.
A video explaining the OLPC is on YouTube (click on the image below to open).
A web site has been created where a pledge can be put down to purchase one of the laptops at USD 300. They are trying to get 100,000 people to sign-up by October 31, 2006 (so far unfortunately only about 3650 people signed up)
More information on the OLPC / 2B1 project:
OLPC wiki
One Laptop per Child News
Wikipedia on OLPC
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