Libya Purchases 1.2 mil Wind-up Laptops

An anonymous reader writes "The government of Libya is reported to have agreed to provide its 1.2m school children with a cheap, durable laptop computer by June 2008. The laptops offer internet access and are powered by a wind-up crank. They cost $100 and manufacturing begins next year, says One Laptop per Child. The non-profit association's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, said the deal was reached on Tuesday in Libya. Professor Negroponte told the New York Times in an email that the project mirrored Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's political agenda of creating a more open Libya and he also expressed interest in purchasing the computers for poorer African neighbors."

Comments

Re:Why?

[Drall]

Libya life expectancy: 76.69 years
USA life expectancy: 77.85 years

Yup, they're just about starving, there. I can see the corpses piling up daily...

It's damn good idea

[jackharrer]

Have you thought how good idea it is? They have cash (oil) but it's pointless to just give it to people. But if you give computers to kids in 10 years time you'll have a lot very skilled computer scientists. And for quite cheap wage. Think how many western companies will try to invest in country like that. And it's much closer that India.
Question is: Are those kids going to learn something or just ignore those computers? Thing is that there're not many things to play with in Libya. Of course if you don't count sand.
That creates very intresting experiment. You have a lot of kids who have nothing to do except playing with computers. Almost 24/7. And they have friends who do the same... What kind of outcome we can get?

I personally think that Qudaffi is not stupid. That's a great investment in future. And great chance - where else can you buy valuable education for $100? If I'm right, we will see many other contries to follow the suit.