Innovation: The 100 Dollar Laptop
On Thursday, October 25, 2007 the 2nd Annual Chicagoland Innovation Summit was held
in Chicago, IL. The event
was presented by Innovate Now. Microsoft was
a sponsor and we had a large presence at the event, but Microsoft was not the only
company at the event. the booth next to ours was manned by Wolfram
Research, the creators of the Mathematica software.
Mathematica is very cool in and of itself, but I was most intrigued by the computing
device they had on their display table. This is the fourth article about some
of the innovations that were showcased, the first article was on Photosynth and
is located here, the
second article was on Seadragon and
is located here, and
the third article was on Surface and
is located here.
100
Dollar Laptop
Originally uploaded by jodieandlarry.
What is the 100 Dollar Laptop?
“The 100 Dollar Laptop” is a nickname that seems to be sticking to an initiative that
is being spear headed by a not for profit organization called One
laptop per child. The goal of the organization is: “To provide children
around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.”
There are lots of components to this goal, but one of the central components is to
put into the hands of every child a computing device that they can use to foster education.
By every child they mean literally every child in every country on the face of the
earth (clearly they are going to focus on developing countries). In order to
be successful, they figured that they would need to find a way to get the price of
the device to around $100 USD and that is where the nickname comes from.
What challenges do they need to overcome?
There are several challenges to overcome with producing a laptop for $100 that can
be used by every child. It would be challenging enough to produce a $100 laptop
for use in the United States, but imagine the challenges brought forth by delivering
it in the 3rd world. In the United States we take our power systems for granted,
they are pretty much there 100% of the time (the occasional weather related outages
aside). In most 3rd world counties you do not get consistent power outside of
the major cities and in the smallest villages there is no power at all. They
are designing this laptop so that it can be used without power (using a hand crank
or foot pedal – the design is still not complete).
Another Challenge is the network connectivity. They are envisioning a time when
in each school there will be a network connection, but probably only one. The
laptops are being designed with a Mesh
Network that will allow the individual laptops to connect with each other using
their onboard antennas and if one laptop is connected to the Internet, all of the
computers will be to share that connection (remember that the next time you complain
about the slow network access at a hotel or coffee shop). If there is no network
connection, the computers in the mesh network will be able to share between each other.
100
Dollar Laptop in Tablet Mode
Originally uploaded by jodieandlarry.
This is not a “toy” computer
At first glance this looks like a toy that your would find at the toy store at your
local mall. It has a plastic shell and the keyboard and other items are accented
with a bright green color that looks very playful. Each of the choices that
they have made in the device are a function of the design goals. The device
has to be rugged, lightweight and cheap to produce, so a molded plastic is probably
the best choice given those constraints. The device is also designed with a
hinge that allows it to be folded for carrying and also allows it to work in a tablet
style mode.
Will they make their goal?
The project is currently quite a ways off from reaching their goal of $100 per unit.
The current model (which actually goes on sale on November 12th, 2007) will cost about
$200 to produce. They are placing it for sale in the United States (and elsewhere),
but they are asking people to buy 2 units for $399. One of those units will
be delivered to you and the other will be sent to a child in a third world country
(and you get a $200 tax deduction). I have no doubt that they will eventually
be able to produce the unit for $100, it is simply a function of the price of the
components continuing to drop and the fact that they will have economies of scale
because they are going to produce millions of these devices.
Technorati
Tags: Chicagoland
Innovation Summit , One
Laptop per Child , Wolfram
Research
