Taiwan’s Quanta Computer says it has confirmed orders for one million notebook computers for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, and may be able to ship between five and ten million OLPC systems this year as new nations sign up for the project. In addition to confirmed countries Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, and Thailand, Rwanda and Uruguay have recently announced their participation in the project.
The OLPC initiative is intended to put laptop computers in the hands of children in developing nations around the world, in an effort to bridge the “digital divide” between rich and poor. In developing economies, lack of infrastructure and high costs prevent many children from the educational and developmental possibilities offered by software, modern communication technology, and the Internet.
