The National Design Awards were launched 2000 in by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum to honour the best in American design. Six years later the Museum has launched a new award, the "People's Design Award". Unlike the National Design Awards, which are decided by a panel of experts, voting and nomination for this award is open to the public. OLPC's laptop has been nominated and awaits your vote.

The breadth of products nominated is wide; Target's prescription drugs bottle, the Helvetica font, the humble Band-Aid and Charles and Ray Eames's eponymous lounge chair and ottoman are all nominated as well as more recent products such as OLPC's 2B1 laptop and yet another of Apple's cool plastic something or others.

Naturally, the nomination cites the "100$ laptop" - despite mounting evidence that the product will probably never be sold to anyone for that price - but that is unlikely to dissuade anyone from voting for it. According to the Washington Post, in beta OLPC's laptop was a clear leader in the voting. However, at the time of writing, the Katrina Cottage appears to have taken a lead. Whether this will be true once the Apple Mac-iosi design community get wind of the vote, who knows.

Although I remain to be convinced by some aspects of the OLPC initiative, there is no denying that their laptop will use novel designs to address serious issues - meaningful ICT access and education in the developing world. It's also a good looking piece of kit.

I voted for OLPC's 2B1 Children's Machine. How will you vote?