[Olpc-za] Tiny island nation gets laptop for every child

[Stuart Murray-Smith]

As found at:

http://www.ioltechnology.co.za/article_page.php?iArticleId=4571933

and I quote:

The tiny South Pacific nation of Niue on Thursday became the first nation in
the world to issue laptop computers to all its children, officials said.

Every primary and secondary school student was this week given a rugged
"relatively waterproof and breakproof" little green laptop, which has
wireless connection to the Internet as part of the One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC) initiative.

The computers have been specially designed by OLPC, a US-based charity, to
help children's learning and to be cheap as well as difficult to break or
damage.

The OLPC programme stems from research and development at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in Boston in the US and has been supported by
businesses including News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch and Google.

The donation of 500 computers to Niue - which has a total population of less
than 1 500 - is part of an initiative to distribute 5 000 laptops in the
Pacific region, OLPC said in a statement.

Barry Vercoe of OLPC Boston said the initiative was to "create educational
opportunities for the world's poorest children".

The laptops are designed for primary school children aged six to 12 but have
also been given to high school students in Niue, where the inhabitants have
free Internet access.

If schools install servers, pupils can access school study information and
chat to each other in a radius of a kilometre, without having to connect to
the Internet.

Jimmie Rodgers, the director general of regional development agency, the
Secretariat of the Pacific Community, said the laptops "have the potential
to revolutionise education in ways that are difficult to imagine". - AFP

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Have a great day!

Stu@


-- 
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free
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