Global ambitions for green machine

One Laptop Per Child campaign approaches take-off in developing world

Millions of low-cost, low-energy laptops are set to reach children in schools across the global South within a year. This spectacular bid to banish the ‘digital divide’ is the brainchild of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a not-for-profit organisation set up by IT guru Nicholas Negroponte at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Inevitably, it was dubbed ‘the green machine’ as soon as the lurid lime-coloured prototype made its debut last November.

The intention is to make it both so distinctive as to discourage theft, and “sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education”. OLPC reckons it is on target for its cost ceiling of under $100 per machine - and falling. Mass production will be part of the key to keeping down costs.

So will the fact that the machine is not designed to store huge amounts of information, and the choice of a screen lit by LEDs rather than the conventional LCD type. Such features should also keep its energy consumption minimal - to the point that it can be powered by winding its crank handle when necessary. The Taiwanese firm Quanta signed up recently to be the first volume producer of the green machine, but its assembly lines won’t start rolling until at least 5-10 million have been ordered and paid for in advance.

The beginning of 2007 is the target date. Arrangements being discussed with the governments of China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria and Thailand should see each take delivery of a million machines for onward distribution into selected pilot schools. And a recent tie-in between OLPC and the UN Development Programme will mean that there’s the organisation on the ground to get things going in the poorest countries too.

Negroponte describes the initiative as “not a laptop project” but “an education project”. The green machine, he says, will be “a window into the world and a tool with which to think”. It will provide children with internet access, sharing one connection in their classrooms through a ‘mesh network’, and be tough enough for them to take home overnight as a DVD-playing ‘TV’.

There are bound to be problems. “There was a similar project in the UK, and lots of teachers didn’t even know how to turn the machines on,” says David Grimshaw of sustainable technology charity Practical Action. He’s cautious, too, about the impact on teaching methods. “You need to consider the content that’s to be taught and how to train teachers to move on from ‘talk and chalk’ classroom dynamics before you start introducing the technology.” Negroponte, however, is putting his faith not just in the kit - but in the kids. - Hannah Bullock

8 March 2006

Hannah Bullock