One Laptop Per Child – OLPC is a non-profit organization that aims at revolutionising education for the poor and needy children around the world. You can donate an XO laptop to a child for $199 and support OLPC’s mission to help isolated children learn, share, explore and connect with each other, irrespective of their language or location.
OLPC allow children to keep the laptop with them, take them home and use it whenever they want to. The group focuses on early education for children aged between 6 and 12 years and they supply laptops in bulk numbers to an entire classroom or school to make sure every child gets one. All laptops are connected to the internet and they run free and open source software.
The organization makes the laptops with it’s own dedicated team of software and hardware developers. The User Interface called ‘Sugar’ is simple to use and promotes sharing and learning. The XO runs Fedora Linux, a linux based operating system. OLPC have also taken into consideration the design requirements specific for use by children, the laptop is rugged, costs less, consumes less power, and has the ability to connect and work in remote areas. The content and tools are specially designed to make learning more joyful, interactive and self-empowered.
With the efforts of OLPC, around 2 million children in the USA, Uruguay, Peru, Haiti, Rwanda and Mongolia now study with a laptop.
