One Laptop per Child 'Give One, Get One' scheme coming to Europe

By Tom Espiner on 14 November 2008, 10:58am

One Laptop per Child's 'Give One, Get One' scheme is coming to Europe.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the OLPC project, told our sister site, ZDNet UK, this week that version two of 'Give One, Get One' (G1G1) would enable European users to participate in the scheme.

"[The] popularity of G1G1 expanded in the USA," wrote Negroponte in an email. "We are taking G1G1 global this time."

Under the G1G1 scheme, people will be able to purchase an XO laptop, the price of which will cover the cost of buying and sending another laptop to a child in a developing country. The scheme ran last year in the US, and is due to restart there on 17 November. People in the US will be able to purchase the laptops for $399 (£260), and donate through Amazon.com.

No official details are currently available about UK cost, availability or when the scheme will launch in Europe.

Negroponte told ZDNet UK that technical support for users is still being worked out, and that Amazon will not be selling a dual-boot version that runs both Windows and OLPC's open-source Sugar operating system.

"We will not sell the dual-boot," Negroponte said. "Microsoft is making that version for the developing world only."

According to Negroponte, the next stage of the OLPC project will depend on the popularity of the G1G1 scheme, the results of which are due at the end of December. If the results are good, the project will expand to distribute the laptops among displaced people, conflict regions and the 50 poorest countries.

After that, OLPC will "make the laptop available to the rest of the world through a partnership of some sort," wrote Negroponte in an email.

He added that he believed the price of an OLPC laptop could drop to $75 (£50) by 2011, "as long as the dollar does not sink".