The United Nations on Thursday lent its support
to a project which aims to ship inexpensive, hand-cranked laptops to
school-aged children worldwide.
Kemal Dervis, head of the U.N. Development Program, will sign a
memorandum of understanding Saturday with Nicholas Negroponte, chairman
of One Laptop per Child, on the $100 laptop project, at the World
Economic Forum’s annual meeting.
The program aims to ship 1 million units by the end of next year to
sell to governments at cost for distribution to school children and
teachers.
UNDP will work with Negroponte’s organization to deliver "technology
and resources to targeted schools in the least developed countries,"
the U.N. agency said in a statement.
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Negroponte wants to start shipping the cheap laptop, which is to
have wireless network access and a hand-crank to provide electricity,
later this year. The aim is to have governments or donors buy them and
give full ownership to the children.
Negroponte, who is also chairman of the MIT Media Lab, has said he
expects to sell 1 million of them to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and
Nigeria.
The laptop is expected to run on an open-source operating system, such as Linux.
The devices will be lime green in color, with a yellow hand crank,
to make them appealing to children and, so the thinking goes, to fend
off potential thieves.
