One Laptop Per Child

The mission of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish our goal, we need people who believe in what we're doing and want to help make education for the world's children a priority, not a privilege.
It's not a laptop project. It's an education project

In 2002, MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte experienced first-hand how connected laptops transformed the lives of children and their families in a remote Cambodian village. A seed was planted: If every child in the world had access to a computer, what potential could be unlocked? What problems could be solved? These questions eventually led to the foundation of One Laptop per Child, and the creation of the XO laptop.

OLPC's mission is to provide a means for learning, self-expression, and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. While children are by nature eager for knowledge, many countries have insufficient resources to devote to education-sometimes less than $20 per year per child (compared to an average of $7,500 in the United States). By giving children their very own connected XO laptop, we are giving them a window to the outside world, access to vast amounts of information, a way to connect with each other, and a springboard into their future. And we're also helping these countries develop an essential resource-educated, empowered children.

A real world laptop for real world change. The XO laptop.

Many years and an infinite amount of sweat equity went into the creation of the XO laptop. Designed collaboratively by experts from academia and industry, the XO is the product of the very best thinking about technology and learning. It was designed with the real world in mind, considering everything from extreme environmental conditions such as high heat and humidity, to technological issues such as local language support. As a result, the XO laptop is extremely durable, brilliantly functional, energy-efficient, responsive, and fun.

The XO Laptop will bring children technology as a means to freedom and empowerment. The success of the project in the face of overwhelming global diversity will only be possible by embracing openness and by providing the laptop's users and developers a profound level of freedom.

As the children grow and pursue new ideas, the software and the tools need to be able to grow with them and provide a gateway to other technology.
Benefits

Learning is our main goal. We do not focus on computer literacy, as that is a by-product of the fluency children will gain through use of the laptop for learning. Children-especially young children-need the opportunity to learn far more than Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Of course, picking up these skills, having grown up with a laptop, will be readily accomplished.

Epistemologists from John Dewey to Paulo Freire to Seymour Papert agree that you learn through doing. This suggests that if you want more learning, you want more doing. Thus OLPC puts an emphasis on software tools for exploring and expressing, rather than instruction. Love is a better master than duty. Using the laptop as the agency for engaging children in constructing knowledge based upon their personal interests and providing them tools for sharing and critiquing these constructions will lead them to become learners and teachers.

As a matter of practicality and given the necessity to enhance performance and reliability while containing costs, XO is not burdened by the bloat of excess code, the "featureitis" that is responsible for much of the clumsiness, unreliability, and expense of many modern laptops.

Connect with local volunteers
You can become a part of the One Laptop per Child community. OLPC has volunteer groups in North America, South America, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. There are also regional volunteering groups in many American states and cities that you can get involved with locally.

Become a translator
OLPC currently deploys in 19 local languages, and the OLPC translation community is working on over 90 more. You can become a part of the translation team, and see the status of our translations here.

Provide support
Sometimes kids and adults need a little extra help with their laptop. They want to know how to install a new program, or fix a problem. We have a very dedicated team of volunteers that assist users with problems. Not much technical experience is necessary, click here for more information.

Develop software
New games and programs are always needed. If you would like to help develop software for the XO, see the Developer's Resources.

Organize a local event
Events of all sorts-on education, technology, culture, games, ecology, and children's events-are often interested in having an OLPC table.  Print out a few flyers, make your own presentation, and organize a presence there.  This is a great way to find other enthusiasts in your field or city.  You can also plan an OLPC Jam focused on creating games, tools, or other materials. 

One Laptop per Child Deployments

The laptop not only delivers the world to children, but also brings the best practices of children and their teachers to the world. Each school represent a learning hub; a node in a globally shared resource for learning.

The laptop takes learners beyond instruction. They are actively engaged in a process of learning through doing. Children also learn by teaching, actively assisting other learners.

"With the laptop we can say that our school is really elevated because the children are really learning more... They see themselves discovering things that they have never been doing before." - Mrs. M., Galadima School, Abuja, Nigeria

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