One Laptop per Child
One Laptop per Child was a non-profit initiative that operated from 2005 to 2014 with the goal of transforming education for children around the world by creating and distributing educational devices for the developing world, and by creating software and content for those devices.
When the program launched, the typical retail price for a laptop was considerably in excess of $1,000, so achieving this objective required bringing a low-cost machine to production. This became the OLPC XO Laptop, a low-cost and low-power laptop computer. The housing was styled by Yves Béhar with Continuum, now EPAM Continuum. The project was originally funded by member organizations such as AMD, eBay, Google, Marvell Technology Group, News Corporation, and Nortel. Chi Mei Corporation, Red Hat, and Quanta provided in-kind support. After disappointing sales, the hardware design part of the organization shut down in 2014.
The OLPC project was praised for pioneering low-cost, low-power laptops and inspiring later variants such as Eee PCs and Chromebooks; for assuring consensus at ministerial level in many countries that computer literacy is a mainstream part of education; for creating interfaces that worked without literacy in any language, and particularly without literacy in English.
It was criticized for its US-centric focus ignoring bigger problems, high total costs, low focus on maintainability and training and its limited success. A large-scale randomized study of 531 primary schools in rural Peru over 10 years found no significant effects on academic performance, primary and secondary completion, or university enrollment. The OLPC project is critically reviewed in a 2019 MIT Press book titled The Charisma Machine: The Life, Death, and Legacy of One Laptop per Child.
OLPC, Inc, a descendant of the original organization, continues to operate, but the design and creation of laptops is no longer part of its mission.
History
The OLPC program has its roots in the pedagogy of Seymour Papert, an approach known as constructionism, which espoused providing computers for children at early ages to enable full digital literacy. Papert and Nicholas Negroponte were at the MIT Media Lab from its inception. Papert compared the old practice of putting computers in a computer lab to books chained to the walls in old libraries. Negroponte likened shared computers to shared pencils. However, this pattern seemed to be inevitable, given the then-high prices of computers.In 2005, Negroponte spoke at the World Economic Forum, in Davos. In this talk he urged industry to solve the problem, to enable a $100 laptop, which would enable constructionist learning, would revolutionize education, and would bring the world's knowledge to all children. He brought a mock-up and was described as prowling the halls and corridors of Davos to whip up support. Despite the reported skepticism of Bill Gates and others, Negroponte left Davos with committed interest from AMD, News Corp, and with strong indications of support from many other firms. From the outset, it was clear that Negroponte thought that the key to reducing the cost of the laptop was to reduce the cost of the display. Thus, when, upon return from Davos, he met Mary Lou Jepsen, the display pioneer who was in early 2005 joining the MIT Media Lab faculty, the discussions turned quickly to display innovation to enable a low-cost laptop. Convinced that the project was now possible, Negroponte led the creation of the first corporation for this: the Hundred Dollar Laptop Corp.
At the 2006 Wikimania, Jimmy Wales announced that the One Laptop Per Child Project would be including Wikipedia as the first element in their content repository. Wales explained, "I think it is in my rational self interest to care about what happens to kids in Africa," elaborating in his fundraising appeal:
At the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United Nations Development Program 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".
Starting in 2007, the Association managed development and logistics, and the Foundation managed fundraising such as the Give One Get One campaign.
Intel was a member of the association for a brief period in 2007. Shortly after OLPC's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, accused Intel of trying to destroy the non-profit, Intel joined the board with a mutual non-disparagement agreement between them and OLPC. Intel resigned its membership on January 3, 2008, citing disagreements with requests from Negroponte for Intel to stop dumping their Classmate PCs.
In 2008, Negroponte 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, was not seen by some as a sustainable operating system. Microsoft announced that they would sell them Windows XP for $3 per XO. It would be offered as an option on XO-1 laptops and possibly be able to dual boot alongside Linux. In response, Walter Bender, who was the former President of Software and Content for the OLPC project, left OLPC and founded Sugar Labs to continue development of the open source Sugar software which had been developed within OLPC. No significant deployments elected to purchase Windows licenses.
Charles Kane became the new President and Chief Operating Officer of the OLPC Association on May 2, 2008. In late 2008, the NYC Department of Education purchased some XO computers for use by New York schoolchildren.
Advertisements for OLPC began streaming on the video streaming website Hulu and others in 2008. One such ad has John Lennon advertising for OLPC, with an unknown voice actor redubbing over Lennon's voice.
In 2008, OLPC lost significant funding. Their annual budget was slashed from $12 million to $5 million which resulted in a restructuring on January 7, 2009. Development of the Sugar operating environment was moved entirely into the community, the Latin America support organization was spun out and staff reductions, including Jim Gettys, affected approximately 50% of the paid employees. The remaining 32 staff members also saw salary reductions. Despite the downsizing, OLPC continued development of the XO-1.5 laptops.
In 2010, OLPC moved its headquarters to Miami. The Miami office oversaw sales and support for the XO-1.5 laptop and its successors, including the XO Laptop version 4.0 and the OLPC Laptop. Funding from Marvell, finalized in May 2010, revitalized the foundation and enabled the 1Q 2012 completion of the ARM-based XO-1.75 laptops and initial prototypes of the XO-3 tablets. OLPC took orders for mass production of the XO 4.0, and shipped over 3 million XO Laptops to children around the world.
Criticism
At the World Summit on the Information Society held by the United Nations in Tunisia from November 16–18, 2005, several African representatives, most notably Marthe Dansokho, voiced criticism towards the motives of the OLPC project and claimed that the project presented solutions for misplaced priorities, stating that African women would not have enough time to research new crops to grow. She added that clean water and schools were more important. Mohammed Diop specifically criticized the project as an attempt to exploit the governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions of machines and the need of further investments into internet infrastructure. Others have similarly criticized laptop deployments in very low income countries, regarding them as cost-ineffective when compared to far simpler measures such as deworming and other expenses on basic child health.Lee Felsenstein, a computer engineer who played a central role in the development of the personal computer, criticized the centralized, top-down design and distribution of the OLPC.
In September 2009, Alanna Shaikh offered a eulogy for the project at UN Dispatch, stating "It's time to call a spade a spade. OLPC was a failure."
A 2012 NPR report on OLPC's implementation in Peru found that while the laptops generated enthusiasm and improved digital familiarity among students, academic researchers observed little to no measurable improvement in math or reading scores. The report also highlighted issues with program oversight and limited teacher training in some regions.
Cost
The project originally aimed for a price of 100 US 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." A BBC news article in April 2010 indicated the price still remained above $200.In April 2011, the price remained above $209. In 2013, more than 10% of the world population lived on less than US$2 per day. The latter income segment would have to spend more than a quarter of its annual income to purchase a single laptop, while the global average of Information and communications technology spending is 3% of income. Empirical studies show that the borderline between ICT as a necessity good and ICT as a luxury good is roughly around the "magical number" of US$10 per person per month, or US$120 per year.
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 and English; also, a $10,000 school can serve 400–500 children. According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for education in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.
The Scandinavian aid organization FAIR proposed setting up computer labs with recycled second-hand computers as a cheaper initial investment. Negroponte argued against this proposition, stating the expensive running cost of conventional laptops. Computer Aid International doubted the OLPC sales strategy would succeed, citing the "untested" nature of its technology. CAI refurbishes computers and printers and sells them to developing countries for £42 a piece.