$100 Laptops In The Field

This morning, I found a collection of videos of the $100 laptop in use in Brazilian and Cambodian schools.

If you haven't heard, the $100 laptop, designed by MIT for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), powered by batteries charged via a hand crank, running open source software, and, as mentioned, costing only US$100, is probably one of the best things to hit the Third World since Alfred Sauvy invented the term, thus damning them to a ambiguous but decidedly dark place in the First World's collective consciousness. Although, malaria shots were pretty cool, too.

While $100 is an unattainable goal for much of the world's poor, organizations like the Grameen Bank push that goal much closer to a reality, especially if used in conjunction with business ventures, sort of like the GrameenPhone.

Of course, if you're Bill Gates, projects like the $100 laptop, Village Phone and all poor who need them can suck an egg, unless you and your horrifying backwardness are lucky enough to fall into the category of an Emerging Market (which only sounds a little vaguely evil on it's own), or, as it's more commonly known, "exploitable." Gates and the $100 laptop.

And if you're thrifty and own a soldering gun, you could always make your own.