In this week's episode of the New Disruptors, I visit One Laptop Per Child, the non-profit building $176 laptops for children in the developing world. I think they are disruptive for many reasons, but foremost is that by trying to design a laptop that initially was supposed to be under $100 they had to rethink many things about computers that most of us take for granted, like the display, the networking, the power consumption, and the durability. (There's no hard drive in this thing). It's also one of the greenest computers on the planet.
CTO Mary Lou Jepsen explains to me in the video how getting the power consumption down to a fraction of what a normal laptop needs was one of the main challenges. (It turns out they do this by turning things off when they are not in use to a greater degree than conventional computers do). Don't be surprised if you start seeing many of these features copied in regular laptops soon.
Watch the video.
I really don't think kids in developing world need these laptops. I'm not sure how this is a disruptor- more a disruption.
I've personally seen kids who get these in Cambodia (granted I'm not sure who the One Laptop Per Child target is) who have become worse for it. Why? They know they can't afford them should they be on their own. And most importantly, the reality of their world is so different it just makes them more angry and hopeless rather than hopeful.
Posted by: Entrepreneur | September 17, 2007 at 02:35 AM