Nick Negroponte, founder of MIT's Media Lab, is spearheading a mission to empower the education of the world's poorest children, a group which numbers in the hundreds of millions. OLPC, Negroponte's nonprofit, has the ambitious goal of providing poor children around the world with electricity-independent, wireless laptops with basic word processing, Internet, and email capabilities. Their premise is that if given access to the tools and some creative teaching aids, these illiterate children can ultimately teach themselves to read. From there, they believe children's curiosity will kick in, and the barriers to learning will begin to crumble.
The obstacles to success are too numerous to mention, but the potential is so limitless that many of the world's most influential political and business leaders are beginning to pay close attention. The target cost is $100, an aggressive goal that many believe is within reach. They hope to start production in 2006.
Does your product design truly unleash the potential of your customers?
Sources: “I'd Like To Teach The World To Type”, Fortune, Nov. 28, 2005, pp. 63-64.
MIT Media Lab, www.laptop.media.mit.edu