OLPC lays off half staff
Laptops for developing world credit crunched
One Laptop Per Child - the non-profit organisation aiming to give kids in the developing world their own laptops - is laying off half its staff and cutting salaries for those who are keeping their jobs.
Blaming the credit crisis, chairman and founder Nicholas Negroponte thanked those leaving for their contribution to "a noble cause".
The restructure leaves OLPC with 32 staff. It will focus on the development of its next machine XO-2 and on shipping a million XO laptops - the group has so far distributed 500,000 machines. Latin America will be spun off into a separate division while the Middle East, Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan "will become a major focus".
Negroponte said: "The future brings with it some uncertainty, some difficulty, but also the excitement that comes with the rededication to a cause, and a new path that will allow us to realize the moral purpose of OLPC."
The project is controversial with some development experts believing clean water, electricity and basic medicine are more important immediate requirements for kids in the developing world. What seemed like a radical idea in 2006 has also been the victim of developments in the mainstream market where the cheapest netbooks are not far from the $100 price point.
Longer term OLPC aims to bring the cost of machines down to zero for the least developed nations. It also runs a G1G1 - Give one, Get one scheme for people to buy a machine and donate one to the developing world.
The group lost several high ranking staff over its decision to work with Microsoft - the machines were launched with their own interface called Sugar which ran on Linux. We have a review of the machine here. ®
COMMENTS
RE: XO are *not* windows laptops...
Yes, at the moment they're not. But not for long
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/15/2320243&from=rss
Annoying
I find it annoying that what ever is done or tried to do we always have this:
"some development experts believing clean water, electricity and basic medicine are more important immediate requirements for kids in the developing world."
So if I hade the means to deliver free condoms for Africa or, what ever, it would be worthless because "clean water, electricity and basic medicine, soop, soup, shoes, boots, sandales etc. are more important.
I must admit too that I feel Microsoft and Windows are sort of a totally killing ingredient in this project.
A bit like giving McDonalds the responsibility for nutrition and food for starving kids.
One World ...
... one child, one debt. Everybody shares the pain. Sometimes I feel NOT giving them a laptop with Windows is the lesser of the two evils.
Dumbass@AC 12:39
XO are *not* windows laptops...it doesn't take much of a google to figure that out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| | | | |
| | Non-python | Sugar shell | Python |
| | Sugar | (Desktop window, | Sugar |
| | Activities | panel, | Activities |
| Regular | (Etoys, | journal) | |
| X | Simcity, | | |
| Apps | Mono |---------------------------------------------------|
| | activities, | Sugar toolkit (python-only) |
| | etc.) | |
| |----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| | DataStore | Presence |
| | service | service |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Matchbox window manager |
| (considering switching to Metacity for improved compatibility) |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| GNOME-ish Linux desktop |
| X11, HAL, D-Bus, NetworkManager, GConf, Telepathy, etc |
| |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's an unfortunate setback for the project, but one I hope, that doesn't see them going under. An incredibly worthwhile cause, not only to benefit the remote regions of the world, but also as a potential to have every child in UK education given one.
Believe it or not, there are still people that don't have a computer at home, and schools that cannot afford new machines as they're continually asked to find cost savings. Living in Glasgow, I'm well aware of the almost 3rd world poverty that some children live in, and maybe, maybe not...a proper introduction to IT at key stages may just help some of these kids in future.
Sorry...got on my soapbox a bit...TITS!!
Re : "a noble cause"
>Since when has hawking Windows laptops to innocent children been "a noble cause"?
The noble cause is getting them computers, as far as I can see. Interesting that not paying the 'M$ Tax' the zealots always whinge about doesn't seem to have made any difference.
