Description

One complete working OLPC with green power cord in original box. Serial number SHF80800637.

"To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning."

That's the vision of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, kicked off in a 2005 Davos presentation by Professor Nicholas Negroponte, with the goal of providing a complete laptop for $100. Faced with skepticism about computer purchases among groups that are often short on basic learning supplies, and competing with aggressively priced models from conventional suppliers, the project has grappled with difficulties in boosting production volumes and dropping prices. This model debuted in 2007 at a respectable $188. Now there is an OLPC XO tablet computer.

OLPC is a different kind of company (technically a non-profit organization created by faculty of the MIT Media Laboratory) and it remains more interested in its mission than achieving commercial success. While more 2.4 million of the beautifully designed machines are in the hands of children and teachers across the globe, the historical legacy of this enterprise is the way it altered the conventional assumptions about markets, price, design, and especially about the use of computers as tools for learning.