Nicholas Negroponte – World-Changing Laptops
Tom Ruwitch / Sunday, February 1st, 2009 / No Comments »The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, Generation BIG. In the book, I profile several BIG people, including Nicholas Negroponte.
- Jeffrey Smith
Nicholas Negroponte has a big dream — to eliminate poverty, create peace, and save the planet — and he thinks computers will make this possible. Negroponte is the founder and chairman of One Laptop Per Child (www.laptop.org).
OLPC’s mssion: “To create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.”
There are roughly 2 billion children whom OLPC hopes to reach. That’s billion with a “B.”
This mission – to put laptops in 2 billion children’s hands – is so bold and so big that many simply dismiss it, including computer manufacturers who refused to help when Negroponte introduced the idea.
“When we started OLPC, we had no choice but to build a laptop because everybody said that it is impossible or silly or some combination,” Negroponte told me recently. “We just said, ‘Okay we will do it.’ People sort of laughed.”
Few are laughing now. OLPC has designed, built and distributed a computer called the XO that the New York Time’s David Pogue calls “absolutely amazing.”
A September 2007 review in Laptop magazine raved, “Its altruistic purpose, along with its blend of convenient collaboration tools, clever hardware, and innovative operating system makes this machine worthy of the global recognition it’s receiving. In its own way, the XO is more of a catalyst for technological change than Apple’s iPhone.”
In October 2007, Uruguay committed to distribute at least 100,000 XO’s – and up to 400,000 – in its public schools. Two months later, Peru’s Ministry of Education agreed to distribute the XO, starting with 40,000 computers for children in remote and rural one-classroom schools.
“Our decision to work with One Laptop per Child was a relatively easy one,” said Oscar Becerra, General Director for Educational Technology of the Ministry of Education of Peru. “The XO laptop is the perfect tool for children to learn by doing, sharing and expressing themselves. The low cost of the laptop as well as its unique features –the display readable in direct sunlight, the mesh network and the overall ruggedness of the machine – make it a great fit for the remote and rural villages of our country.”
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Bold, innovative and generous people like Nicholas Negroponte are in every corner of America. We want to find them, celebrate them, and connect them with you. We plan to connect with and honor BIG people in every corner of America.
If you know people who are BIG, please share their stories with us.
