Unlike many of its neighbors, Uruguay puts a lot of stress on education. All education – even college and post-graduate studies – is free. However, Uruguay doesn’t come close to having amounts of resources comparable to those of the U.S. It comes as no surprise, then, that it is there that the One Laptop per Child program (OLPC) is making great strides.
According to the BBC, the government of Uruguay has provided over 362,000 students with the small but rugged laptops offered by OLPC. The whole project, dubbed “Plan Ceibal,” cost the government $260 per child – including the costs of maintenance and training.
The project revolutionized many families’ lives in Uruguay, as more than 70 percent of the laptops were given to families who didn’t have access to computers before. In this manner, the government of Uruguay and OLPC have given children access to a whole new digital world as well as the Internet.
Yet the OLPC project involves much more than giving out laptops. As is stated in the organization’s mission statement on OLPC’s website, the true goal is to inspire more children to learn, and give them the tools to do so.
The mission of the project is, “to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.”
The statement goes on to explain how these laptops can accomplish the goal.
“When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education,” it says. “They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.”
The laptops have the same clear focus as the organization themselves. The devices, named XO laptops, have been designed from the ground up to be optimal for their task.
Their hardware is built to be rugged and last several years. It has heavy duty antennae, giving it the ability to better access Internet connections. Also, the multi-purpose hinge allows the XO to take various forms, including the traditional laptop style, a form for reading books, and a tablet form. These facilitate various forms of learning, making the XO a very versatile piece of equipment.
Perhaps more important than the hardware of a computer is its software, as it is what defines the user experience with the product. The XO comes with a customized Linux operating system called Sugar, as well as several programs that are designed for learning.
The Sugar operating system is designed specifically for child use. Thus, it is very simple, and neatly organized. It features 3 main views: neighborhood, group, and home. These show the broad network of nearby XO devices, the users’ favorite nearby XO devices, and the software on the computer respectively.
The software that is bundled with the XO provides both educational and entertainment options for students. It comes with a word processor that is capable of networking, allowing different computers to access the same document. It also has many music creation programs, an Internet browser, some graphics programs, as well as games.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the XO is its Mesh Network. This system allows the XO to expand the range of its wireless Internet connections. As soon as one computer is connected, it broadcasts that connection further using its own antennae. Thus, computers far away from the access point can also be connected to the Internet, if there are XOs closer to the access.
All of these features make the XO a perfect computer for fostering education in developing nations.