What is One Laptop per Child (OLPC)?
In January 2005 the MIT Media Lab launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. OLPC is a US-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute the laptops. Despite its association and founders, OLPC is independent of MIT. Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.
OLPC is based on constructionist learning theories pioneered by Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, and also on the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte’s book Being Digital. The founding corporate members are Google, News Corp, AMD, Red Hat, Brightstar and Nortel, each of whom donated two million dollars to the project. All three individuals and six companies are active participants in OLPC.
“One laptop per child” is a concept. It is an education project, not a laptop project. It can be implemented in more than one way, by no means limited to the embodiment of the OLPC non-profit association’s so-called “$100 Laptop.”
The argument for olpc is simple: many children—especially those in rural parts of developing countries—have so little access to school—in some cases just a tree—that building schools and training teachers is only one way—perhaps the slowest way—to alleviate the situation. While such building programs and teacher education must not stop, another and parallel method advised by OLPC is to leverage the children themselves by engaging them more directly in their own learning.
It may sound implausible to equip the poorest children with connected laptops when rich children may not have them, but it is not. Laptops can be affordable and children are more capable than they are given credit for.