OLPC Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

OLPC - Essay Example The idea of OLPC came to his mind in a deprived village called Reaksmy in Cambodia (MARKOFF, 2005) which needed a 5-hour drive from the nearest city. The people there do not even have electricity, drinking water and the people are mostly very poor. Negroponte established a school there 8 years ago. He also placed a satellite dish to send and receive signals and generators as power supplies. Then they gave a laptop to each child. Immediately, school got a lot more popular and modern as a school in a developed country. Kids who had never had the idea of what a computer looks like before were now a part of the modern world. Nicholas Negroponte was really impressed since the children who did not even have a TV before, had a high speed internet connection now. Negroponte's idea was that children should not have any need for anyone to teach them how to use a computer. He had the idea of designing a laptop computer which they could experiment the way to use it on their own or with a little assistance from a friend. Negroponte says the idea of One Laptop Per-Child is complete... team of engineers and programmers to design and implement a personal computer which could be usable for a child in a Third World conditions, an advanced computer with many innovations. For example, it's the first laptop computer with can be used in open air and in full sunlight. Water may be dropped on the keyboard and it will not be damaged at all. Sand and dust cannot enter the system and this level of protection, keeps it safe for a long time. Recently the OLPC project is facing with a new challenge which is competition and there is a question regarding this goal, If Negroponte's idea is absolutely humanitarian and kids are proposed to be the only persons to benefit from it, why there are companies which want to do the same work Perhaps the large number of needed laptops for children is the reason. With such a big number of cheap laptops going to be distributed around the world, these companies will face with loss of revenue. Intel for example is a company which Negroponte believes is doing an effort to prevent him from achieving his goal for example by giving a laptop to every child in a school in Mexico (IWAP, 2007). But Intel describes this effort as a part of the goal of giving any child a laptop and giving them the access to the most affordable computers. These laptops are now just models and they are not in the process of mass production. It is estimated that at least 3 million laptops is needed to be needed to be produced (OLPC, 2007). Negroponte is sure about getting these orders, even with the increasing amount of competition as other companies are trying to produce cheap laptops. Even considering these competitions, it is believed that the OLPC program will finally result in more kids getting laptops. This is at the end, what Negroponte wanted the