Uruguay: One Laptop for Every Student

Social entrepreneur Nicholas Negroponte wasn't quite able to get the price point for his XO laptops below the $100 target, but his vision to put one of the low-cost, open-source machines in the hands of grade school students throughout the developing world is beginning to take hold.

Now the South American nation of Uruguay has joined Negroponte's One Laptop per Child organization in providing -- as the name implies -- one free XO laptop for every student otherwise lacking an Internet-connected computer at home. Roughly 362,000 students and 18,000 teachers in Uruguay have received the laptops over the past two years, according to a recent BBC News article.

It wasn't clear in the article how much the laptops themselves cost the Uruguayan government, however the per-unit cost including maintenance, repairs, training and Internet connectivity is $260. As the BBC article states, the XO laptop program represents 5 percent of Uruguay's education budget.

Miguel Brechner, director of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay, heads up the country's Plan Ceibal program for helping families connect to the Internet. Brechner, quoted in the article, makes a clear distinction between mere charity and the more ambitious goals of the program:

"This is not simply the handing out of laptops or an education program. It is a program which seeks to reduce the gap between the digital world and the world of knowledge."

And while children in the United States -- or anyone in the developed world, for that matter -- might prefer something with more horsepower and features, the XO laptop's ease of use and low cost can mean the difference between getting left out of the 21st century or getting a leg up. It's refreshing to know that not every computer maker is simply out to make a buck.

Image courtesy of One Laptop per Child