OLPC Mass Production Begins

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday July 23, 2007 @07:01AM from the long-uphill-battles dept.

chris_mahan writes to tell us that mass production of the $100 laptop is finally being ramped up. "Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organization behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007. "There's still some software to write, but this is a big step for us," Walter Bender, head of software development at One Laptop per Child (OLPC), told the BBC News website."

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Re:Blah by DragonWriter · 2007-07-23 08:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Most of these people would probably better off getting $100 which is like 5 years wages where they live.

In what is, IIRC, the largest launch country, Brazil, median income for black women (the worst off racial/gender mix) is $156/month. (source)

Heck, even Rwanda (which is one of the poorest nations that may get it early, through Libya purchasing it for them) has an average per capita annual income of $206 (source), over an order of magnitude higher than you suggested for "most" OLPC recipients.