As I was browsing the internet today, I came across an ad for The One Laptop per Child association, so I did some research (thank the Internet God's for Wikipedia once again!). The One Laptop per Child association(otherwise known as OLPC) is a non-profit organization that was created by faculty members of the MIT Media Lab. According to wiki.laptop.org, "OLPC espouses five core principles: child ownership, low ages, saturation, connection, and free and open source. OLPC is funded by a number of organizations, including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. All of which have donated two million dollars each. The goal of OLPC is to provide children arround the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. With that being said, OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and a distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with currently unavailable technological learning opportunities.

        Sound all-holy and too perfect for you? Yeah, OLPC has had it's share of up's and down's since it's launch in January of 2005, but now it's promising trials of the Windows version of the machines to begin in June. How do these laptops get to the children? The laptops are sold to governments, then are distributed through the ministries of education willing to adopt the policy of OLPC. What countries are jumping in for the help of OLPC? In Asia: Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Mongolia. The Americas? Haiti, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. And how about Africa? Just Rwanda. Some other interested countries include Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria, Brazil, Suriname, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand.

        Honestly, this organization is starting to pry open the doors for tons of children who don't have access to a lot of the information all of us take for granted. Imagine if all the children (yes, I'm channeling in to my inner Michael Jackson) in the world just had access to more information about, well, almost everything. I really wish the world would focus on more serious issues like this organization is. As important as what's going on right now is, we should really be thinking about the future. The children really are our future, and how well are we planning for it if they aren't being educated as much as they could be? We all know how technologically advanced the world is becoming... so why not share that with those who just can't afford it if we can afford it for them?