One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
Concept: Nicolas Negroponte // Designer: Yves Béhar of Design Continuum // Engineer: Squid Labs // Manufacturer: Quanta // Date: 2005-2006OLPC is an ambitious project imagined by Nicolas Negroponte. The aim is to provide 150 million of the world's poorest, under-educated children with a laptop costing no more than $100 each, purchasable by governments, charities and world organisations.
This laptop is not aimed at adults, office workers or techno whiz kids. It looks very different from the sleek Apple Macbook, for example, but it's half the size and has tons of character. It's created a whole new style of laptop. The OLPC laptop has a very different purpose for very different users, hence its vibrant colour scheme and robust shape. Its most unusual feature is the antennas, or 'ears' which twist up for reception.
The materials used to make the OLPC laptop needed to be able withstand the extreme temperatures, high humidity and grueling environment of the developing world, with the added challenge of the $100 (£50) price-mark. Real ingenuity was required in terms of materials, prototyping and manufacture. As a result, every element of the laptop has been developed with a dual purpose — to save on materials and cost. For example, the swivel 'ear' aerials double as dust covers for the open ports, and the green rubber bumper seals the laptop body and provides a surface into which the feet are integrated.
This laptop has been designed with a very specific use and user in mind — as an education tool for children in developing countries. The OLPC laptop boasts a half-mile network range (so children within a village can be linked together) and wi-fi. It has three power charge options: battery, foot pedal and manual pull chord and a small solar panel to run the open-source software it is compatible with. And there's more — it's got a memory card slot, a touch-pad for drawing and built-in carry handle!
The OLPC project is about making social advances, rather than advances in computing or technology, by designing a laptop for a completely new market — one where there is no feasible profit. If successful, its impact on the world would be extreme; bringing technology and education to children in areas of severe poverty. Every element of the OLPC laptop is designed for this one purpose: from the easy-to-use, intuitive interface suitable for children who never used a computer before, down to the removable keyboards to accommodate numerous local languages.
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