Ethical concerns still abound
According to the OLPC organization, three new countries have jumped onto the OLPC bandwagon, each ordering one million units. Argentina, Brazil and Thailand have all committed to purchasing a total of three million OLPCs. The new orders follow Nigeria's own order of one million OLPCs. Khaled Hassounah, OLPC program director for the Middle East and Africa regions said that while Nigeria has not fully finalized its purchase, the OLPC organization is "actively moving ahead with Brazil, Argentina and Thailand."
Just several days ago, India announced that it may not participate in the OLPC project. The education secretary of India raised concerns that "fancy tools" such as a laptop will hurt the mental growth of a child. India argues that many of the world's top minds and most successful people went through school during a time when laptops did not even exist.
Despite the concerns over in India, the OLPC organization says it will actively pursue other countries. The OLPC project aims to provide millions of laptops to needy children in developing countries. Although governments must pay for the laptops, the units will be distributed free of charge. The laptops themselves cost roughly $140 each and even come with their own power source.
Although the OLPC project is supported by many companies such as AMD (OLPCs run on AMD processors), eBay, Google, Red Hat and others, many people have expressed similar concerns as India. Some governments are saying that needy children in developing countries need food, water, health care and better education -- not laptops.
Update 08/04/2006: OLPC representatives have denied this commitment.
"Well, we didn't have anyone in line that got shot waiting for our system." -- Nintendo of America Vice President Perrin Kaplan
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