Unfortunately I think the whole project is naive. I imagine just the screen for a laptop costs more than $100 or even $200. Certainly they do to replace, even on a 5 year old iBook. Batteries with any reasonable lifespan that don't involve lead are rather expensive as well. There is also the matter of supporting the things, which is costly in expertise.



A laptop is an incredibly poor choice as a primary computer in an environment where wealth is limited. As an example, I was recently *given* a 2001 vintage iBook. By the time I replaced the power supply (lost), keyboard (soda spill), and battery (worn out) to make a working laptop, I had a $270 machine. As the saying goes, free kittens aren't. I knew this going in, and it was worth it to me, but I'm not in a position where I have to skimp on food or shelter to pay for such things.



A much better choice would be a modular desktop machine. Better still would be to help the locals put together their own computer industry so it can serve their needs instead of naively engineering for what we think they should want. Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish...

Point being, when economically disadvantaged countries have the surplus wealth and time to computerize their schools, they will. By that time hopefully we'll have a better handle on whether it's a good idea in the first place.

I only know that I could take a pair of those and generate wealth (as it were) in my part-time webhosting and computer repair biz. I could probably resell them and make a mint.

I suspect the existence of a $100 laptop will force the industry to respond with laptops nearly as cheap and ruggedized, creating more wealth in the first world .... possibly increasing the divide 'tween 3rd and 1st?

Why not teach our kids math properly instead?

As the Chinese demonstrate, access to computers is definitely not a requirement for education.

The BBC reported on this (and I’ve written about it at Techcentralstation as well). From the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4292854.stm

"A prototype of the machine should be ready in November at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia.

Children in Brazil, China, Egypt, Thailand, and South Africa will be among the first to get the under-$100 (£57) computer, said Professor Negroponte at the Emerging Technologies conference at MIT.

The following year, Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney plans to start buying them for all 500,000 middle and high school pupils in the state. "

There is no desire to stop people in the rich world from having them at all. Greater volume reduces all costs. But they (from memory from my old research) only want to have 500k plus piece orders.

The missing ingredient here is fab technology. Pretty soon, there will be open-source, cutting edge free* laptops for everybody.

* Granted, you'll still need access to a fabricator and some stuff to put in it. But these computers will arguably be as "free" as a free kitten.

Jim, you're right in a sense - the screen is the highest cost component of the hand crank laptop. The article I read - sorry can't remember where, probably the London Times or Guardian, maybe the BBC - said that it is only now that relatively low spec screens cost $35-40 that they can develop such a cheap laptop.

Call me crazy, but I don't think that computers are a prerequisite for quality education. Our high school (and even elementary school children) have more computers than probably anywhere else in the world, and it's made little difference in their comparative performance. Of far greater impact is the quality of the teaching, and most importantly, the attitude towards education at home. Having computers in the classroom is educationally necessary if what you want to learn is how to use computers, but they are to no more advantage than a book and a pencil when learning language, history, science, and even math. (I am not in favor of calculators, either. The Professor on Gilligan's Island didn't have a calculator! If you can't do math without a calculator, that means you can't do it, period.) Computers are just another way for our bloated, lumbering, inefficient, money-hoovering school districts to waste more taxpayer money.

I don't get this worry about gray market. Since when did a manufactured item not become less expensive as volume increased? I'm sure Negroponte is a smart guy and all, but I don't think he has thought this through. A quick google shows that child slaves in Mali go for $30. How is a $30 child going to keep a $100 laptop from being stolen? What about making the child so distinctive that there will be a stigma about having a child slave?

The only way to solve the real problem by is by fostering an appreciation of the value of human beings. Handouts are the opposite of that. They foster a view of people as things you have to spend money on. That's why parents sell their kids, to save money on food. If there were better jobs for them, like making cheap computers, then the kids would be valuable enough to educate instead of being given electronic babysitters. All this effort on the laptop should be spent on building a local economy based on for-profit manufacturing so that it is sustainable. Handing out free computers will destroy any attempt at that, just like second-hand clothing handouts keeps Africans impoverished by preventing the grown of a textile industry.

This whole project sounds like a nice scheme to get developing countries to get loans, buy western tech that will fall apart after a a few months in the hands of a child (as all things given away free to a child do), and let the US taxpayers pick up the tab for their "charity' when their government defaults, again.

It's the 21st century, and computers are a prerequisite for quality education, and growing more so every day.

Yes, there are still people who don't use computers to do their jobs, but their numbers are declining.

500,000 unit orders puts this out of the reach of most retailers. I could see Fischer Price or the Leapster people partnering with Wal-Mart or Amazon to do it.

Whoever retailed this would have to overcome the temptation of making it proprietary. If this is just another kids learning computer and not a full-fledged laptop, it won't be as useful.

Well, if it is a "humanitarian" effort, it is possible that the companies involved are doing it for cost. The difference between cost and retail is pretty substantial. If the parts were sourced from the manufacturers instead of marking up from each individual manufacturer it would not be unreasonable for a retail figure to be near the thousand dollar mark. (Six hundred percent markup from manufacturer costs plus distributer and retailer markups) The US market isn't going to be permitted to buy these at the $100 figure (not to mention surcharges for US warranty costs and set asides for US tort liabilities).

Perhaps I'll be accused of being callous about the education of Third World children. But wouldn't a better idea to helping these kids be to overthrow the oppressive dictatorships that keep the misery of these people as the status quo? Even Bono and Bob Geldorf are begining to figure out that improving the lot many of these nations requires a lot more than throwing money at it.

When the people who run these nations wind up living high on the hog while their people starve, mainly because they've stolen most of the financial aid, something is wrong, and $100 laptops won't solve the problem.

Just wondering...

Here's the problem. Even if machines anyone wanted could be built for $100 (and I have serious doubts about that - a hundred dollars is about what the estimates for building an iPod nano run to, and a laptop computer needs *some* more features than that) are we doing these people any favors? Are we helping or destroying their local economies by giving them finished products? See this link for more discussion.

Are people with zero surplus wealth ready to have their minds connected to the great sewer that is (most of) the internet? For us in the Western world, it's the next obvious step. We've been through the print, radio, and TV waves, using the net at least let us talk back. But for people who may not even have seen TV yet, I can't imagine net access and computing will be a positive thing.

I say stop giving economically disadvantaged nations finished goods and food and help them grow more of their own sustainable food resources and create more of their own wealth and build stable societies and economies, so when they're ready for more of the fruits of the 21st century, they can buy them for themselves.

As for hundred dollar laptops running Linux? Who'd want one? Western nerds might, but Linux is not a good OS to start with for someone who has never touched a computer before. The choice of OS is just the capstone of a whole heap of politically correct - but nevertheless bad - ideas that this project encapsulates.

-HH