One Laptop Per Child Overview

During the Davos World Economic Forum in early 2005, then-secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, joined Nicholas Negroponte in presenting the children's learning laptop design to the world as the "$100 laptop". Negroponte's idea of computer-facilitated constructionist learning on a mobile platform became an instant international sensation.

President Lula loved XO laptops

Developing-world presidents from Brazil to Nigeria to Thailand were captivated by Negroponte's dream that they could revolutionize education, the very act of learning, with an inexpensive yet rugged laptop specifically designed for children that negated the need to construct schools or hire teachers.

In just 4 years, Nicholas Negroponte's idea has grown into the non-profit organization, One Laptop Per Child, an international consortium of leading technology companies and gifted computer programmers and designers who have produced an actual working laptop, the XO-1 based on constructionist learning.

OLPC has distributed over 500,000 XO-1 laptops that could open a window onto the world for the children and by extension their families and community. And once the children outgrow the laptops, the technology can be repurposed in ways we can only imagine.

Yet, there is still much confusion around the progress of OLPC and the impact of the XO in eduction. And with the recent refocusing, a few too many premature program obituaries. So to provide a comprehensive status of the One Laptop Per Child program, and the XO-1 laptop impact, OLPC News is proud to publish:

This resource, developed with the combined knowledge of the OLPC News editors, and informed by the vibrant debate on OLPC News and OLPC News Forum, should serve as a reference guide and knowledge resource for those interested in the one laptop per child idea and its incarnation as OLPC's XO-1 laptop.

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