Not long ago, in 2005, the one laptop per child (OLPC) program and appropriate non-profit organization were established with an enthusiastic aim to provide poor children with XO laptop for better education. XO laptops, sometimes called as ‘$100 laptop’, due to promised cost at $100 per unit, were welcomed by about 15 countries.
However, this progressive plan seems to be getting off the track due to lack of big orders. As far as the question of price hike is concerned, countries like Nigeria will have to consume approximately 73 percent of government’s total income to provide every kid with this machine at $208.
Their may be various reasons for raising coast, like price hike in it’s important components like nickel and silicon or currency fluctuations, but main reasons lies somewhere else.
In fact, fall in mass production has hit the main cause for price hike of XO laptops from initial $100 to present $189.
First, the production was going to be 10 million units, then it was five, then three, now it’s one million.
What is creating problem is less effective sales strategy and absence of non-governmental organization at all. Foundation can do nothing except looking at government for orders.
Founding father of this organization, Nicholas Negroponte of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, still seems anxious to move ahead with his desired aim of providing poor grammar schools with Xo laptops free of cost via government and said:
We are testing it. We are making sure all the software works. We are making all the corrections on it that need to be made before the product comes out.
What seems appropriate at present is inviting some non-governmental organizations for small-scale production. Further, it should think over better distribution plans to get near to OLPC program.
Image Credit: Techshout
Via: Newsfactor
