OLPC: The Laptop with a Mission
Timmy Magalang
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a bold move to enable children of the developing countries to gain access to technology.
If it can overcome all the barriers it is facing right now the children of the remotest villages in the world can benefit from this project.
Beginnings
During the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005 the One Laptop Per Child was introduced to the public. It gained much attention when Nicholas Negroponte, founder of OLPC, and Kofi Anan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, unveiled a working prototype of the laptop at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia on November 16, 2005.
One Laptop Per Child aims to provide children (ages 6-12) around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves. It is involved in designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system to give educationally underserved children from developing countries access to technological learning opportunities. It has five core principles namely: child ownership, hardware/software designed for elementary school children, saturation, connection, and open source.
XO laptop overview
XO is the laptop of the OLPC project. It is a potent learning tool which has the following features:
- Fanless and silent
- Weighs 3.2 lbs
- Battery that can last for 6 hours of computing activity and 24 hours of reading
- Built–in video camera
- Microphone
- Memory Card Slot
- Graphics Tablet
- Game-pad controller
- Screen that rotates into a tablet configuration
The optical drives are not available. Also, no hard drives can be found and the display is only 7.5 inches. The operating system is Linux.
The people behind OLPC originally wanted the price of XO laptop at $ 100 but as of now it ‘s not yet achievable. Like what I’ve said earlier this project has to win many more battles to reap its fruits.
(To be continued next week)
For comments and suggestions you can e-mail e at techoclock@advancesolutions.net
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