The Little Laptop That Could—Change the World, That Is

The goal: to promote learning. The idea: to build a laptop tough enough and basic enough to be manufactured cheaply and sent to children in third-world countries. The result: the amazing XO laptop.

Developed by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, the XO is now being distributed by One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organization founded by Negroponte and a team of educators, developers, and technologists dedicated to educating children in developing countries.

The XO story provides another vivid example of generous individuals getting together and using their knowledge and creativity for the larger good. It also illustrates that once we put our minds to overcoming obstacles, we find the solutions we're seeking.

The XO weighs only 3.2 pounds, can endure searing heat, freezing cold, rain, dust, and being dropped, and can be charged by its solar panel or hand crank. It has all sorts of fun stuff (video camera, microphone, graphics tablet, game-pad controllers, among other things) and is pre-loaded with educational software in languages for the particular country it's being sent to. It also has regular wireless Internet as well as "mesh networking," which allows all the laptops within a certain area to connect to one another even when there's no Internet connection available.

To see the XO in action and learn about the Give 1 Get 1 program (warning, you WILL want one of these laptops for your kids, or yourself), watch this entertaining two-minute ABC America video :



One other important feature of the XO is that it is given to children—not to their schools or governments. Negroponte and his colleagues realize the importance of children teaching themselves and each other. When they bring their laptops home, they share their fun and learning with their siblings and parents, and even the larger community.

"When people ask me how are we going to teach the teachers to teach the children how to use a laptop, I wonder what planet they're on, because every adult that I know, if they want help using their laptop or a cell phone they ask a child," Negroponte told Riz Khan of Al Jazeera (October 4, 2007). "Children are almost genetically capable of doing this. So the point now is to take that skill and let them learn and play with information and work in school and out of school."

How Can You Get Involved?

Donations to OLPC can be made at any time and in any amount. Each $200 raised will provide a laptop to a child in a developing country. For two weeks only, starting November 12, you can Give 1, Get 1. By donating $400, a laptop will be delivered to you by Christmas and a second one will be sent to a child in a poor country. All donations to OLPC are tax deductible.

When we give good, we get good. Obviously, when children everywhere have access to education and feel involved and connected, it benefits us all. When new innovations like the XO are developed, we benefit as well. You can bet some of the new technology and features developed for the XO (the energy efficiency, the childproofing, the connectivity even without the Internet, and more) will find their way into the next generation of mainstream laptops we all buy.

One question remains: Why is it called XO? We're sure there's a technical reason, but considering the laptop is going to children in need all over the world, we like to think XO means a hug and a kiss.

Two Additional Laptop-Related Videos Worth Exploring

For a more in-depth look at why the XO laptop is so amazing, watch New York Times technology columnist David Pogue's fun and informative four-minute show-and-tell.

For a thought-provoking 17-minute interview with Nicholas Negroponte, XO developer and One Laptop Per Child founder, click here.

New Study on American Families Provides Some Positive Surprises

“Parents today don’t spend enough time with their children.” If you agree with this statement, you're in good company. Eighty-five percent of Americans agree with you.

But, a recently released four-decades-long study begs to differ. The study, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, by sociologists Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa A. Milkie (published this month by the American Sociological Association), concludes that the time parents spend with their children has actually increased since 1965: married mother’s by 21 percent, married fathers by 153 percent, and unmarried mothers by 57 percent.

Impressive numbers. So why do so many of us think families are a mess and parents are barely in touch with their kids?

Bianchi, et al, explain that America’s misperception is based on two key factors. First, more than we ever have in the past, we believe today that “larger quantities of parental time are not only morally right, but also critical to the proper development of the child.” With expectations so high, it’s no wonder parents rarely feel they've spent enough time with their kids. And second, we have a strong “nostalgia for a mythical past—one in which family time is believed to have existed as relatively uncomplicated, freely chosen, and rejuvenating.”

And here’s a surprise: Only about half of American families in 1950s and 60s actually fit the Ozzie and Harriet model of breadwinning father/homemaking mother. Oh, the power of the TV image.

One significant benefit of parenting in our current times, the study points out, is that women and men have much more choice about whether to have children, when, and how many. As a result, more parents are older when they have children and more are college graduates or have at least some college education. Older, educated parents tend to be more emotionally mature and financially settled. They also tend to have fewer children, so their attention is drawn in fewer directions.

There’s no denying it, families today are more complicated, but the study’s authors say their evidence “paints a rather optimistic picture of family change.”

They conclude:

Families can undergo great change and still somehow protect that which seems most dear. Mothers are maintaining high levels of investment in child rearing, fathers are increasing theirs, so that mothers and fathers are increasingly sharing the demands of parenting. The transformation seems widespread, well under way, yet still evolving. . . . The revolution in mother’s paid work has not been without cost, be we are most impressed with family life’s amazing resilience in the face of unprecedented social change.

So, parents everywhere, give yourselves a break. And while you're relaxing, read our earlier positive parenting report, Boys, They Aren't What They Used To Be.