Kid-Friendly Laptops for the Third World

MIT

THE $100 LAPTOP Initiative is Nicholas Negroponte's solution for helping bridge the information technology gap. The idea? Stripped down, green-colored, durable laptops powered by a handcrank that can be sold for $100-thus making it possible for them to find their way into the hands of millions of disadvantaged children in the developing world. By turning the crank for 10 minutes, each user would get 30 minutes of computer time. Internet connections would be of the wireless type. Negroponte, cofounder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, has set up a nonprofit group to sell millions of the tiny laptops to third-world governments, which would then give them to kids. But at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis last November, some observers were critical of the scheme. One participant said access to clean water and better schools was a more important goal, and another saw the initiative as a marketing scheme to sell Western IT to the world's poor. Others raised concerns about future environmental problems after the cheap, green machines stop working and need to be properly disposed. One bad omen: When U.N. secretary-General Kofi Annan tried out a prototype at the conference, the crank came off in his hand.-THOMAS K. GROSE

Copyright American Society for Engineering Education Feb 2006
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