Crossing the Digital Divide: The Latest Efforts from One Laptop per Child

A lot of people talk about the digital divide—I wanted to do something about it.

This effort emerged as a way to capture the endless momentum of Moore's Law and create a laptop for those far on the other side of the digital divide—the poor children of the world and their families. In fact, the vast majority of the world lives without so many of the things we consider essential, not least of which is access to education and information. This year, we intend to launch with millions of laptops simultaneously in Rwanda, Pakistan, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Libya, Nigeria, and Thailand. The children themselves will own these laptops, which will be distributed to them by the Ministries of Education. They should last for five years and are cheaper than five years' worth of textbooks in the average developing country.

We have not created a cost-reduced version of today's laptop; we have created an entirely new approach to the idea of a laptop, which I will discuss in some detail. It has three significant features you would like in your own laptop: (1) it is so low-power that it can make its own electricity, which is critical in a world where 50% of the kids have little or no access to electricity at home; (2) through mesh networking, it is its own hot spot; (3) it has a sunlight readable screen, which is key when so often in the developing world school is held under a tree. As we start mass production, many details of deployment, teacher preparation, content, in-country maintenance, and in-country networking are being finalized. I will discuss our latest efforts and plans in these areas.

Mary Lou Jepsen is co-founder and chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child, where she is responsible for overall hardware management. Previously she was a group executive at Intel and a co-founder and CTO of the MicroDisplay Corporation. She is widely regarded as a display technology pioneer. She is also a professor at the MIT Media Lab.