Through a partnership with Amazon.com, the One Laptop Per
Child organization began today its Give One, Get One campaign, which is in its
second year running and aims at helping with the educational process in the
developing countries.
The organization’s promotion asks the Web site’s users to
either buy an XO laptop for $199 or buy one for themselves and one to give away
for $399. The new promoted XO model is a 7.5-inch, convertible notebook with a
433 MHz processor, 1 GB flash memory, 256 MB DRAM, 802.11b/g/s, SD slot, a
built-in Web cam and microphone, weighting in at 3.2 pounds. The operating
system can also be found on last year's GNU/Linux-based OS, and it is called
Sugar.
Last year’s effort, which began on November 12 and ended on
December 31, managed to raise $35 million that were used to buy more than
100,000 XO laptops. The devices were then sent to children in Afghanistan,
Cambodia, Mongolia, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Haiti. Everyone involved hopes that
this year the initiative will record figures that will exceed or at least reach
the bar set by the first edition. A bigger success would also mean that the
program could include many other countries dealing with these problems, places
where such an initiative, in the long run, could make all the difference.
"The phenomenal success of last year's Give 1 Get 1
program created tremendous demand from both the public who wanted to give more
and from countries that saw an opportunity to attack poverty through
education," explained Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One
Laptop Per Child, in a statement. "Renewing the program now will help us
scale existing deployments and expand into many other countries as well."
The organization had to recover from a significant blow, as
its main partner, Intel, decided to get out of the deal. Michail Bletsas,
OLPC's chief connectivity officer, talked to Gearlog earlier this year and presented
the company’s departure as "pretty disappointing, but at the end of the
day, it seems that all Intel cared about was putting laptops in the hands of
kids, as long as they were Intel Inside laptops."
OLPC managed to find another interested tech giant,
Microsoft, which even though might have had a hard time deciding on these
pro-bono actions, appears committed to the cause. Craig Mundie, chief research
and strategy officer at Microsoft, stated on several occasions that the
company's goal in joining OLPC is to "make technology more relevant,
accessible and affordable for students."
OLPC stated that all its combined efforts so far have helped
with the acquisition and distribution of more than 500,000 XO laptops in 31
countries. Its official goal for 2008 is to reach a delivery number of 1
million units – which at this point appears quite in reach.
Many companies and organizations, such as Google and the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, stated that they
will match or even double any donation made by its employees, in an effort to
inspire other companies to get involved.
