OLPC XO Laptop Sent to Africa

by Joanna Stern on

"Aunty, can we get one? How can we get one?" shouted Fatoumata, a six-year-old girl living in the wegave1got1_sh

Kaporo Rail district of Conakry, Guinea, as her small hands tapped on the XO laptop's keypad, instructing it to take a digital picture. Surrounding Fatoumata and the laptop's webcam were the neighborhood boys and girls making funny faces, sticking out their tongues, and waving their hands. Their attention was focused on the small laptop, no bigger than a lunch box, and its camera that allowed them all to see themselves on "television."

"It was a stampede of children. The most enthusiastic fans I have ever seen--more excited than those crazy old 'NSYNC fans--all just huddled around a little laptop," said Salimata (or Sali) Fandjalan, who brought the XO laptop to the neighborhood (read Sali's journal and see her photos of the XO in action).

In Conakry (map), the capital of Guinea, children aren't guaranteed a primary-school education, so many children have never been to school, and some, like Fatoumata, don't know how to read their native language. On November 3rd, 2007, Fatoumata and 14 other children from Kaporo Rail saw their first laptop (their first computer, for that matter). But it wasn't just any laptop; it was One Laptop Per Child's (OLPC) XO, a machine specifically designed for children of developing countries. The fully charged, green-and-white briefcase-shaped machine was carried into Kaporo by Sali, who received the laptop from OLPC's headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as per the request of LAPTOP Magazine.

Today starts the One Laptop Per Child's Give 1, Get 1 program, which lasts until December 31, 2007. The XO laptop is being made available to U.S. and Canadian consumers, but only if they buy one to donate to a developing nation. At a cost of $399 for both computers, you can get the 3.2-pound green-and-white laptop that's resistant to spills, rain, dust, and drops, and includes its own operating system (called "Sugar"), a built-in video camera, an Internet mesh-networking platform, gamepad controllers, and a screen that rotates into a tablet configuration. You can place an order via phone, (1-877-70-LAPTOP), or through www.xogiving.com, and receive one year of complimentary access to T-Mobile HotSpot locations throughout the United States; these hotspots can be accessed from any Wi-Fi-capable device, including the XO.

Why is the XO being offered to consumers all of a sudden? The project's founder and chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, admitted that concrete orders from the governments of developing nations had not always followed verbal agreements with monetary orders. Cash-strapped countries, specifically ones in Sub-Saharan Africa, don't have the money to shell out on educational tools such as laptops. "We are making the XO available to U.S. and Canadian consumers as a financing scheme for the developing world, to trigger global demand and government closure," Negroponte told LAPTOP Magazine. He added, "I have, to some degree, underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written."

One fault of the Give 1, Get 1 program is that consumers cannot specify where they want their donated laptop to go. Sali asked many of her friends to participate, but regardless of the number of people she gets to Give 1, Get 1, the Kaporo Rail district will not be receiving any XO laptops from the program. According to Negroponte, "the countries that will be getting laptops in the Give 1, Get 1 Program are so far: Haiti, Rwanda, Cambodia, and Afghanistan." Consumers will also have to be patient because even though OLPC initially said the first 25,000 participants in the Give 1, Get 1 program would receive their personal XOs before the end of the year, now the nonprofit says that deliveries will start in December and will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

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