OLPC to focus on large-scale deployments of XO laptops

24.02.2009
Nonprofit organization One Laptop Per Child is shying away from small deployments of XO laptops to focus on large-scale deployments as it restructures to cope with the recession.

OLPC is not selling laptops individually anymore and will focus on large-scale deployments that could top millions of laptops in countries, OLPC founder and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte said in an e-mail interview. The nonprofit is breaking up its operations based on regions for a targeted focus on those deployments.

The change was partly triggered by a drop-off in interest in the group's Give 1 Get 1 program, which was a big source of funding for OLPC. Under the program, a consumer could donate US$400 to OLPC for two laptops, with one of them delivered to a child in a developing nation.

This G1G1 program was first launched in 2007 and met with instant success, raking in close to $35 million in sales. However, sales from the consequent G1G1 program, which lasted from 2008 through earlier this year, dropped tremendously to around $3.5 million.

"[This] year G1G1 was less than 10 percent of the previous year. Not good; perhaps in keeping with the economic times," Negroponte said.

Earlier this month, a program for donors to employ 100 or more XO laptops for small-scale deployments, called "Change the World," was also discontinued by OLPC. The program was defined as a "special program that allows donors to choose the country where the laptops go."