No More the 100$ Laptop
September 16th, 2007
The Manufacturers of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) which has been rejected by the Indian government have raised their price again,
The vaunted “$100 laptop” that Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers dreamed up for international schoolchildren is becoming a slightly more distant concept.Leaders of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child that was spun out of MIT acknowledged Friday that the devices would cost $188 (€136) if mass production, expected to begin this fall, were to start now. The last price the nonprofit had announced was $176 (€127); it described $100 (€72) as a long-term goal.[link]
The OLPC project made no sense even at the low 100$ price considering the abysmal quality of primary education in India. One suspects that the situation may not be entirely different in other developing countries who have been targeted by the OLPC. With constant price jumps, it is questionable if the project is viable anymore. Perhaps, it is time to scrap the entire project and invest the resources in things which would benefit the students more; blackboards for example.
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One Response to “No More the 100$ Laptop”
Wayan September 16th, 2007 at 9:22 pm #
As “Policy Wise” you may be interested in Bob Kozma’s “OLPC and Policy Recommendations” here; http://www.olpcnews.com/use_cases/education/olpc_policy_recommendations.html