Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop

It's that time of year again! The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) organization is encouraging consumers to help a child in a developing country, while reaping some benefit for themselves. Right now you can buy an XO Laptop to donate to the OLPC for distribution and get one for yourself in the bargain.

Not only is OLPC's goal of providing a tool with which children in poor countries can "learn learning" ambitious, the machine they have designed to accomplish this is in itself revolutionary. The laptops form a mesh network in which all computers are connected to each other rather than a central point. This is for the purpose of allowing users to learn with each other, share their learning experiences and collaborate as peers.

The rationale for providing them to developing nations is that such nations often have little money to spend on education. The XO is designed to become the learning environment as opposed to a technological addition to a child's education. Ideally, the laptop can provide opportunities for children to learn where no such opportunity previously existed. Working with teams from Red Hat and Pentagram the OLPC has created an open-source system with a unique graphical interface that is globally child-friendly.

To order the laptops, you can visit Amazon's special page or the OLPC website.