A One Laptop Per Child update from Nicholas Negroponte
This post is part of a series from the TED 2009 conference held in Long Beach, California from February 4-8th. You can read other posts in the series here, and the TED site will release video from the talk in the coming weeks or months. Because I’m putting these posts together very quickly, I will get things wrong, will misspell names and bungle details. Please feel free to use the comments thread on this post to offer corrections. You may also want to follow the conference via Twitter or through other blogs tagged as TED2009 on Technorati.
Nicholas Negroponte takes the TED stage for the first time in three years. He tells us that a few years ago, everyone thought his idea of a low-cost laptop was silly. He points to the Netbook – lightweight, highly simplified laptops – and tells us this market is now up to 50% of the world’s laptop market. “They didn’t copy the right things from us, but they exist.”
But Netbooks can’t do everything – he throws laptops on stage and encourages us to try that with our netbooks. Or try using them underwater. Or in a dusty African village – “they won’t work.”
“OLPC is a nonprofit. That means we can have partners the normal market cannot have.” Those partners include the kids and their parents. With half a million machines in use, NN is seeing children teaching their parents both to use the computers and to read and write. Teachers see discipline problems go down – their main complaint is that they get too much email from students.
“Commercial markets will go to no end to stop you. It’s sort of a tragedy,” Negroponte tells us. So the future of One Laptop Per Child is to go “from uppercase to lower case”, to “build something that everyone copies.”
“We had to build the first laptop because no one else would do it.” But now, OLPC will release and open source hardware design and invite others to copy it. He predicts that within 3 years, we’ll see 5 to 6 million machines a month, built by companies around the world.
See you in three years, Nicholas.
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February 7th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
[...] a side conversation with Ethan Zuckerman here, this is what they should have done 3 years ago, and it would have saved them a lot of [...]
February 7th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
I wonder what Negroponte really means when he says “open source hardware”? From Chuck Kane’s comments it sure sounds like “reference design” not truly Open Source.
February 8th, 2009 at 7:51 am
[...] – Ethan Zuckerman) If you like this post, please share it with [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 8:03 am
[...] to become, in essence, more commonplace, to “build something that everyone copies,” according to Ethan Zuckerman, blogging from [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Wayan is probably right. I keep wondering when the OLPC clones, like the iPhone clones, will arrive. They “look” like an OLPC, or an iPhone, but they are nothing of the sort. (I’m also waiting for the port of Sugar to the iPhone and the Android …)
February 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Negroponte Open Sources OLPC Hardware Design, Invites Copy-Cats [Olpc]…
The embattled OLPC program, already reeling from job cuts and salary decreases, is making one final attempt to stay afloat: Open source everything and hope enough companies copy the design to make it profitable.
The news was delivered by OLPC frontman…
February 8th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
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[...] Link There are currently no comments highlighted. [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
[...] (Source – Ethan Zuckerman) [...]
February 8th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
[...] design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 1:10 am
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 1:37 am
[...] to become, in essence, more commonplace, to “build something that everyone copies,” according to Ethan Zuckerman, blogging from TED. [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 10:28 am
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
February 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
[...] TED 2009, Nicholas Negroponte said that the netbook had copied much of the OLPC, but not the right things: “They didn’t copy [...]
February 10th, 2009 at 3:54 am
[...] (Source – Ethan Zuckerman) [...]
February 10th, 2009 at 8:04 am
[...] Bueno de Mesquita with predictions on Iran. There’s also an update from Nicholas Negroponte on his One Laptop per Child program [...]
February 10th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Why does this fraudster still get publicity? Everything he has does has resulted in failure.
February 11th, 2009 at 5:01 am
[...] 在2009 TED大会上，尼葛洛庞蒂说，作为一个éžè¥åˆ©æ€§é¡¹ç›®ï¼ŒOLPC将完全开æºï¼Œæˆä¸ºå¼€æºç¡¬ä»¶ã€‚他还说，3年之内，这将使全çƒå„地的厂商æ¯æœˆç”Ÿäº§5ï¼6百万å°æœºå™¨ã€‚ [...]
February 14th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
[...] genre. Here is the original report from Ethan Zukerman from a recent TED conference – “A One Laptop Per Child update from Nicholas Negroponte“. In the meantime, however, the OLPC news continues to host what seems like a brainstorming [...]
February 14th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
[...] …My heart’s in Accra » A One Laptop Per Child update from Nicholas Negroponte [...]
February 21st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
[...] …My heart’s in Accra » A One Laptop Per Child update from Nicholas Negroponte :: e points to the Netbook – lightweight, highly simplified laptops – and tells us this market is now up to 50% of the world’s laptop market. “They didn’t copy the right things from us, but they exist.†[...]
March 12th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
[...] what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via [...]
July 12th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
[...] 12 million netbooks worldwide in 2008 and possibly 35 million in 2009. Nicholas Negroponte, who has laid claim to starting this market with the OLPC XO-1, believes that in a few years, 1/2 of all laptops sold [...]