[OLPC India] One-laptop project to debut in Maharashtra

[Frederick Noronha [फ़रेदरिक नोरोनया]]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Hardware/One-laptop_project_to_debut_in_Maharashtra/articleshow/2749835.cms

One-laptop project to debut in Maharashtra
2 Feb, 2008, 0122 hrs IST,Deepshikha Monga, TNN

NEW DELHI: MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child
(OLPC) project has finally found its way to India. The project, which
aims to provide digitally-enabled education through the use of
low-cost laptops to children in developing countries, will see its
first deployment in Maharashtra.

About 500 XO laptops, as the laptops are called, would arrive in
February for deployment in various schools in the state. The laptops
have been localised and come with the keyboard in Devanagari.

So far, a few XO laptops had been given to school children in a
village called Khairat in Raigadh, Maharashtra under a pilot project
started in September-October last year. The pilot was undertaken by
the Digital Bridge Foundation, an organisation comprising Indian
volunteers supporting the OLPC in India, and the OLPC Foundation.

While the first 500 XO laptops would be deployed in Maharashtra by the
Digital Bridge Foundation along with an NGO, talks are also on with
the Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan governments. The OLPC
project aims to make available laptops at about $100 apiece but the
actual price still hovers around $188.
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Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490
The Goa books blog: http://goabooks.wordpress.com
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