Computing for Democracy

Filed under: Technology

Back in April, our Robert Mayer blogged about Nicholas Negroponte's "One Laptop Per Child" campaign, posting video of his lecture about the project at Time magazine's 2007 Leadership Forum. The sub-$200 laptop, designed to be used by children in the developing world and potentially a boon to openness, development and democracy, is shown above.

Now, the New York Times reports that the project is facing trouble:

Late last year, Mr. Negroponte said he had hoped for orders for three million laptops, but those pledges have fallen short. Orders of a million each from populous Nigeria and Brazil did not materialize. Still, the project has had successes. Peru, for example, will buy and distribute 250,000 of the laptops over the next year -- many of them allocated for remote rural areas. Mexico and Uruguay, Mr. Negroponte noted, have made firm commitments. In a sponsorship program, the government of Italy has agreed to purchase 50,000 laptops for distribution in Ethiopia.

Click through to find out more about the current status of the project and how you can help (a new marketing initiative allows you to buy two such machines for $399, keeping one for yourself and sending one to a child in a developing nation). Watch a video review of the product here.

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