18/11/2005
$100 Laptop Unveiled At Tunis Summit

The prototype of a cheap and rugged laptop for children costing only $100 was unveiled this week by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis which took place this week. The laptop forms part of the strategy to deliver to poor communities the benefits of information technologies and networks.

" When they start reaching the hands of the world's children, these robust and versatile machines will enable kids to become more active in their own learning," Mr. Annan said. "Children will be able to learn by doing, not just through instruction or rote memorisation. And they will be able to open a new front in their education: peer-to-peer learning."

The low-energy green laptops, powered by a windup crank, are the key to the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative introduced by Mr. Annan and Professor Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab.

The laptops are to be financed through domestic resources, donors and possibly other arrangements, at no cost to the recipients themselves. They are to be distributed through education ministries using established textbook channels, Mr. Annan said.

Calling the laptops an "impressive technical achievement," the Secretary-General said that they were able to do almost everything that larger, more expensive computers could do, unlocking the "magic with each child, within each scientist, scholar or plain citizen-in-the-making." He urged governments at WSIS to incorporate the initiative into their efforts to build an Information Society.