Island of Niue children get US $188 OLPC laptops

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 25 August 2008 11:21

Opinion and Analysis

According to an article at the The Times, the inhabitants of Niue have free Internet access (lucky them!), so giving a computer to each school child (which could also be used be their families) will introduce technology and the Internet to thousands of people.

It will also see the children much more connected with each other when out of school, as they can now use Instant Messaging to chat with each other.

Jimmie Rodgers, who is the director general of The Secretariat of the Pacific Community, is quoted in an AFP article saying that the laptops “have the potential to revolutionise education in ways that are difficult to imagine”.

Well, the world is about to find out just how successful the OLPC project will be.

The future of the OLPC project depends on the success of these initial deployments, and given that the children of these countries can’t afford “standard” laptops (be they Windows, Linux or Mac-based), the OLPCs are certainly better than nothing, and will hopefully make as real a difference to their education as has always been promised.

The world will OLP-see!