Small-time philanthropists buying bargain-priced laptops for children in Third World countries through a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor’s world-renowned program can now donate a computer and get one for themselves in the process.
One Laptop per Child, an organization founded by Nicholas Negroponte, currently sells a $200 portable computer that plays multimedia, runs a word processor and supports wireless networking and can withstand a 6-foot drop, water submersion and extreme heat.
There is only one stipulation — interested buyers must also purchase a laptop for a child in a developing nation as part of the organization’s new “Give 1 Get 1” program.
“For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops — one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home,” Negroponte wrote on the organization’s website.
Negroponte originally aimed to sell 5 to 10 million $100 laptops to governments in developing nations that would then issue them to children, he told The Daily Free Press in April 2006. The organization fell short of its projected sales goal since its 2006 launch, however.
The new project, by the company Monday, will allow American and Canadian consumers to purchase two XO laptops for a limited time in November.
Negroponte said in a Sept. 24 press release he believes consumer support will “trigger greater interest and commitment from governments of developing nations, as well as those of wealthier ones.”
The organization has increased the production price to $188 since its launch, but that will not affect distribution among children, he said.
Boston University associate marketing professor C.B. Bhattacharya, an expert on social initiatives in marketing, said OLPC’s project could help jumpstart sales.
“Sometimes it is hard to figure out the right price or value ratio to begin with and some experimentation is required,” Bhattacharya said. “The market can probably bear the $400 price with the buy-one, get-one scheme. If this is successful, the price may go back to $100 over time.”
Chief Technology Officer Bilel Jamoussi at Nortel, a high-tech networking company and a sponsor of the OLPC initiative, said the “Give 1” part of the project provides OLPC with the funds to manufacture the XO laptops, ship them and enable them to connect in developing nations.
“OLPC is a nonprofit organization providing means to an end,” Jamoussi said. “An end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe to tap into their own potential and to expose themselves to a world of ideas.”
Though hopeful, other experts say they are unsure what success the new twist on the original project might have.
“Pioneers rarely survive, but new technologies are necessary to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of learning for the future,” said BU Office of Information Technology Executive Director Michael Krugman. “Any culture that spends several billion dollars a year on ringtones has the resources to invest in a range of strategies for improving the human condition.”º
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