Nicholas Negroponte, the esteemed Chairman Emeritus and founder of MIT’s Media Lab, has had his philanthropic vision undermined by a cheaper laptop. In his well-publicized campaign to provide One Laptop Per Child, Nicholas has dedicated hundreds of hours and money in order to provide less fortunate or low-funded school children with low end laptops that will improve education and spark interest for young students all over the world.

Since $100 dollars per child may still be too much, Indian HRD ministry has begun a project to commission a $10 laptop, and already has several top Indian designers and engineers competing for the contract. While the actual production cost will be around $47 per laptop, at a price of $10 per pop, simple grade school math shows that today’s education funds could provide 10 times as many laptops per child (that’s at least a %1 increase- at least) when compared to Negroponte’s model.

As per the design/engineering contract, the laptop components must be on a single board and the winning creation will be the laptop that is the most powerful at the cheapest production price. Although this new take on the One Laptop Per Child campaign is interesting, expect the $100 laptop sooner, since:

Sources say it would be another two years before the laptops become a reality. “We do not want to rush into it. Many issues remain to be resolved like royalty to the designer after the design is patented. Prototyping would also take time. We would even conduct destructive testing and create a proper maintenance network,” said one official.

The fall 2007 release of the $100 laptops (that may be $150) will definitely be a huge step forward in global education standards, but with the eventual release of India’s $10 laptop, helping children just got a whole lot more competitive. Of course, there are some schools that receive computer equipment from donations alone, so even charging $10 per laptop may be too much for districts that get them for free.

[Via 10-dollar-laptops]

1. L.T. says:
   May 12th, 2007 at 8:55 pm

   I hope that’s a wrist rest (say that 10x fast) or that’s officially the world’s largest noteback trackpad.