Developing nations to test new $150 laptops

By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - From Brazil to Pakistan, some of the world's poorest children will peer across the digital divide this month -- reading electronic books, shooting digital video, creating music and chatting with classmates online.

Founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology academics, the non-profit "One Laptop per Child" project will roll out nearly 2,500 of its $150-laptops to eight nations in February.

The experiment is a prelude to mass production of the kid-friendly, lime-green-and-white laptops scheduled to begin in July, when five million will be built.

Its technological triumphs include a hand crank to charge its battery, a keyboard that switches between languages, a digital video camera, wireless connectivity and Linux open-source operating software tailored for remote regions.

The project's operators say the price should fall to $100 apiece next year, when they hope to produce 50 million of the so-called "XO" machines, before dipping below $100 by 2010 when they aim to reach 150 million of the world's poorest children.

"We're pledging to always drive the price down," Walter Bender, the group's president of software and content, told Reuters. "Rather than continuing to add features to keep the price inflated, we're keeping the feature set stable and driving the price down."

A string pully, which Bender likens to a "salad spinner", is replacing the handcrank. A minute of pulling generates 10 minutes of electricity. The display switches from color to black and white for viewing in direct sunlight -- a feature unavailable in laptops 10 times more expensive.

State educators in Brazil, Uruguay, Libya, Rwanda, Pakistan, Thailand and possibly Ethiopia and the West Bank will receive the first of the machines in February's pilot before a wider rollout to Indonesia and a handful of other countries.

CRITICISMS

But not everyone is applauding. Some predict the project will be a financial burden on countries that can least afford it with no guarantee of success. Others say the money would be better spent on food, medicine, libraries and schools.

Some African officials question whether it suits the education of children outside the United States. Still others question whether the laptops simply will end up resold in illegal markets by cash-strapped families and communities.

"On the technology I think the project is amazing and wonderful," said Wayan Vota, whose blog (olpcnews.com/) monitors the project. "What gives me pause is the social implications, the economic implications" of how they plan to implement it.

"Essentially they want developing countries -- or countries that already have a significant amount of debt or other commitments -- to borrow even more, or to use even more of their limited resources, to buy the laptops and to implement them in a way that is untried and untested on a large scale."

Vota, who is also director of Geekcorps, a nonprofit that promotes communication technology in developing countries, predicts staggering costs for some poor nations.

"If you look at the cost of doing one laptop per every Nigerian child it actually turns out to be 73 percent of the entire Nigerian budget -- that's not the educational part but the entire national budget of Nigeria," he said.