|
3 million laptops in India by end of 2009, says OLPC
March 19, 2009
Source: Financial Express
 Print
Email
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has set an far-fetched target to sell 3 million OLPC laptops in India by end of 2009.
The One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is a U.S. non-profit organization set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world. Its mission is "To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning." Its current focus is on the development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop.
The company, which started took-off in mid-2008 in India, currently has around 1,000 laptops deployed on in the country. The laptops come at a meager price of Rs 15,000.
OLPC India president and CEO Satish Jha said that they are in talks with several urban schools and so far have sales of around 1 million units in the pipeline. Aimed at bridging the digital divide in the country, OLPC is now tapping into the corporate sector to assist in introducing computing to the underprivileged in the country.
Jha also added that the cost of adopting one village will be around Rs 5 lakh; even if a few large corporations adopt 10 villages, which means around 400-500 students each, it will be soon be a huge number. OLPC, which does not directly sell the laptops in the market, is also in talks with several state governments to implement the project in their regions. However, the company is yet to finalize a deal with the any state government.
The 1,000 laptops sold by the organisation so far are to six schools in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. While schools in Khairat village in Maharashtra were the first to adopt the model, Katha schools in Delhi are also part of the project among others. OLPC was one of the pioneers of the low-cost computing drive, after which leading PC vendors have come out with their versions of the cheap netbooks. The OLPC laptops are manufactured by Taiwan-based Quanta Computer, the largest manufacturers of laptops in the world. |