Q&A with Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab Chairman and Co-Founder

The $100 laptop is a joint project of the MIT Media Lab and the One Laptop per Child association (OLPC), which plan to distribute the computers to schoolchildren around the world, starting with people in developing regions of the world. The initiative was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

We recently had the opportunity to catch up with Mr. Negroponte about the $100 Laptop and OLPC. Here's what he had to say.

What specific goals do you have for the OLPC initiative as it exists today? (For example, are you hoping to connect a specific number of children, or is your vision more open-ended?)

The goal of "one laptop per child" is expected to launch the product for primary and secondary school students in seven countries (India, China, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand), starting one year from now. Shortly afterward, we anticipate seeing a steady rise in our global run-rate.

What critical needs do you envision the $100 laptop meeting for people in developing regions of the world? Better access to healthcare information? Better access to educational opportunities? A doorway to the global economy?

This is an education project, not a laptop project. We focus on primary and secondary education, in part because if you mess that up, you spend too much time undoing it. The project is meant, among other things, to leverage the ability of children to teach themselves a great deal, on their own as well as peer-to-peer.

What kind of changes do you expect the $100 laptop to foster in our world as more and more people start using it?

We have seen "one laptop per child" have enormous effects in the few instances it has been applied.

For example, teachers we have been working with in Maine tell us they were initially apprehensive. But now we are finding the exact opposite after three years. They report much higher classroom engagement, lower discipline problems, a dramatic drop in truancy, a distinct rise in parent-teacher meetings, and floods of e-mail from kids asking for extra help.

Do you have any thoughts or plans for additional devices that would work alongside the $100 laptop?

A suite of peripheral and power-generation devices is planned. We expect to see a small industry of energy supply emerge, including devices ranging from hand-cranks, to toys that generate and store electricity.

How many years do you expect the OLPC initiative to last and how do you ensure its long-term success?

OLPC will exist as long as it needs to. It may be totally out of the laptop business five years from now. The measure of success will be how many children worldwide have a laptop. If this can be achieved without OLPC lasting forever, all the better.

How do you see the OLPC initiative evolving over its lifetime?

In the long run it is a humanitarian project. Right now it is a manufacturing challenge. Moving from one to the other will be the hard part.

Can you provide some background on how you came to conceive of the OLPC initiative? What inspired you to develop a low-cost laptop vs. another type of device or even a low-cost PC? What unique advantages does it offer?

Two concurrent and independent projects, as well as 24 years of work in computers, education and developing nations (starting in Senegal in 1982).

In 1999, my wife and I built two (of what have since become five) schools in Cambodia and brought broadband Internet into villages that had no electricity, no telephone, no television, no running water and (in the case of one village) no road. Our son installed WiFi and brought laptops that the kids took home at night. Parents loved this because the laptops were the brightest light source in the house and the portability was obviously very compelling as well. It's also interesting to note that the first English word each child learned was Google.

In the year 2002, Governor Angus King of Maine passed legislation for one laptop per child. Unlike telecommunications, which scales and is elastic, the real roadblock has been the cost of laptops, which are typically designed to work within a very high-powered and complicated infrastructure. That's not necessary for the work we're doing and the challenge is to change the way people think about the laptop as a product.

Training will be essential to the success of the $100 laptop. Can you explain what kinds of programs you believe are necessary to help children learn how to use the laptop?

I do not think you need much for children to learn how to use a laptop. Teachers, by contrast, need preparation and confidence. A great deal of effort will be applied to teacher preparation.

What do you anticipate the first thing is child will do his or her new laptop?

This is very age and language dependant. Younger children may explore tools to make games; older children will undoubtedly spend time on the Web. We tend to emphasize constructionist learning and that influence will be clear. The laptops, nonetheless, are general purpose and will be used in many different ways.

Click here for more details on the $100 Laptop Initiative and OLPC, Inc.