Will Nortel help make the dream of one laptop per child a reality? Apparently so:
Nortel is a member of the "One Laptop per Child" (OLPC) initiative, a non-profit organization, which was formed earlier this year by Nicholas Negroponte and other faculty members from the MIT Media Lab.
Nortel’s Brazilian unit is helping to finalize options for pilot projects in the country. "We are looking at several options and the timeline isn’t precise yet. But we expect that in six months we will have a defined way to move forward," said Abreu.
The company is helping
Nortel Brasil is also in talks with educational institutions such as the
The firm is bringing its expertise to identify ways to connect the notebook to networks. It is helping to develop technology such as WiMax/Wimesh, which can be used in remote locations in
One of the biggest challenges is to align various disparate organizations and fit the initiative within government projects, said Abreu.
The corporations that have joined the OLPC initiative have pledged an undisclosed annual contribution to help fund it.
The objective of OLPC is to develop a fully functioning, connected laptop to give an innovative learning tool to as many children as possible around the world – especially those in developing nations.
The machines are rugged, Linux-based, and so energy efficient that hand-cranking alone can generate sufficient power for operation, Nortel said.
The OLPC’s pricing goal is to start near US$100 and then steadily decrease. However, some experts are concerned that the low cost of these notebooks may lead to low quality.
The Brazilian division of
VoIP Blog - Tehrani.com
March 17, 2006 at 10:57 amBill Gates On the $100 Laptop
Bill Gates is not enamored with the cheap computer that is part of the one laptop per child initiative. He would prefer it have a larger screen a hard disk and I would surmise use Windows instead of Linux….
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