In 2005 an MIT Professor named Nicholas Negroponte launched the grandiose and popular plan to bring technology to the developing world, One Laptop per Child. The program is dedicated to designing a $100 laptop so that developing countries could purchase them en masse and distribute them to school-age children. The goal of the program is “To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.” (www.laptop.org). Great idea, but according to NPR (Laptop Project for Developing Countries Hits Snag), Intel, one of the program’s biggest backers, has dropped out over a disagreement on how Intel would market a rivaling product. That, and not enough people are placing the orders for machines to drive down the price. Capitalism, it seems, has gotten the better of this ambitious project.

Or has it?

There are many arguments for and against the program, but perhaps the issue here is actually a case of bad marketing. Several developing countries (like India for example) have chosen teachers or books before a laptop. $100 is what many people in developing countries make in a year, not to mention the cost and accessibility to internet and even electricity (though there have been some amazing breakthroughs in getting Wi-Fi access to rural areas, like Eric Brewer’s WiLDNets).
Not to say that education in developing countries is not a pressing and dire issue–it is. But this project seems like it would be better suited to dissolving the achievement gap in the US first than solving the developing world’s problems. Which is why it’s great to hear that OLPC has announced that it will extend the program to students in the US . Giving under-privileged kids the same tools for success that their richer peers take for granted could go a long way towards solving our own education crisis…and who knows? Maybe one of those kids would grow up to invent the next ‘Microfinance’, cheap water filters, or AIDS drug.

And capitalism hasn’t quite nipped inspiration in the bud either. In fact, Mary Lou Jepsen, one of the top execs at OLPC, plans to take the many technologies she developed for One Laptop Per Child for profit in an attempt to increase access by getting costs down through mass production.

So while the first go may not have been as successful as first expected, there’s still a lo of potential and the program has already made some amazing strides in lowering the barrier to information (not to mention developing great new technologies). But while capitalism would typically be credited with such innovation, it was the cause that encouraged the innovators. As Lou Jepsen mentioned about her work on the project:

“Muhammad Yunus is on to something with his social businesses because everyone involved works a lot harder. You’ll stay up all night because the kids need their laptops. It’s finally using your skills for something that can really matter–that can really change the world in a positive way.”