One Laptop per Child

The One Laptop Per Child project is one step closer to releasing the completed machine to millions of schoolchildren in the developing world. But what makes the computer so unique?


Nicholas Negroponte is the founder and the chairman of the non-profit organization (One Laptop per Child). I think that the initiative taken by Professor Nicholas to develop the innovative laptop, XO, is great and very interesting. First, it will offer to children in even the most remote regions of the globe the opportunity to make use of their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community. Actually, the new laptop will be considered as a window on the world for the developing countries’ children. As we all know, any nation's most precious natural resource is its children. I believe the current world must control and influence this resource, children, by exploiting their innate capacities. Children to whom the laptops will be distributed will be able to learn, share, and create on their own thanks to the XO laptop. In fine, Professor Negroponte is aiming by this new innovation at reducing the gap created by the differences in technology access between countries. This could be referred to by, global digital divide.
According to BBC News magazine, most of the nearly two–billion children in the developing world are inadequately educated, or receive no education at all. One in three does not complete the fifth grade. In morocco, which is unfortunately also considered as a developing country, education is unequally distributed between rural and urban areas. However, despite the great role that could play the new laptop in the developing countries, I think that it will be difficult to integrate it in Moroccan culture. Children are consigned to poverty and isolation—just like their parents—never knowing what the light of learning could mean in their lives. However, Negroponte’s laptop is not the ultimate solution for Moroccan children.
English is our third language; it is spoken by minorities and taught mostly until the high school. Therefore, it will be difficult to children to manipulate and learn by themselves using this innovation. In contrast, if we assume that the XO laptop will be developed also in French or even Arabic, Moroccan children will need some people to assist them. In reality, it was and still is difficult to make available traditional instructors in schools in rural areas just to teach children the basics, what about finding people who will assist them in learning via the XO laptop? The task is hard or impossible…