The
One Laptop per Child association (OLPC) is a Delaware, USA based, non-profit organization 501(c)(4), created
by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab, set up to oversee The
Children''s Machine project and the construction of the XO-1 "$100 laptop". Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005. According to the home page of the project''s wiki at laptop.org, "OLPC espouses five core principles: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and (5) free and open source."
OLPC is funded by a number of sponsor organizations, including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES, Nortel Networks, Red Hat, and most recently Intel. Each company has donated two million dollars.
The organization is chaired by Nicholas Negroponte and its CTO is Mary Lou Jepsen. Other principals of the company include former MIT Media Lab director Walter Bender, who is President of OLPC
Software and Content, and Jim Gettys, Vice-President of Software Engineering.
The goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end, OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise unavailable technological learning opportunities.
OLPC espouses five core principles :
Child ownership
Low ages. The hardware and software is designed for elementary school children, ages 6-12.
Saturation
Connection
Free and open source
“ It''s an education project, not a laptop project.
” —Nicholas Negroponte