Intel joins OLPC programme

By Leon Engelbrecht for Intel
Johannesburg, 16 Jul 2007

Chip-making giant Intel has joined the United Nations Development Programme-supported One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme, closely associated with its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Intel and OLPC, a global not-for-profit organisation, announced on Friday that they have agreed to work together, "to bring the benefits of technology to the developing world through the synergy of their respective programmes".

Under the agreement, Intel and OLPC will explore collaborations involving technology and educational content. Intel will also join the OLPC board.

"Collaboration with Intel means the maximum number of laptops will reach children," says Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC founder.

"Joining OLPC is a further example of our commitment to education over the last 20 years and our belief in the role of technology in bringing the opportunities of the 21st century to children around the world," says Intel CEO Paul Otellini.

Impact at home

Intel SA country marketing manager Delia Griggs says it is still too early to tell what impact the development will have in SA. For the present, it will not affect Intel's World Ahead programme - its rival, in part - to OLPC, or the roll-out of the Classmate PC.

A pilot project is scheduled for launch early next month, she adds, saying it forms part of a larger donation of 5 000 PCs to the Department of Education.

She says a number of desktops were donated to a school at Bela Bela, in Limpopo, last year. Future donations will mostly be Classmates as they can be locked in a safe and require less infrastructure - such as safe rooms - than desktops.

"It's great that we're joining [OLPC]; everyone is trying to do the same thing. World Ahead is about connecting the next billion users and OLPC is aligned to what we are trying to achieve. The only difference is in the devices," she says.

She adds that collaboration will accelerate the roll-out of sub-notebooks to the world's school children.

"There will be less focus on product and more on what makes sense from an infrastructure and environmental point-of-view," Griggs adds.

Comparisons

OLPC's rival to Classmate is the XO-1, often advertised as the "$100 laptop". Griggs says the price remains unrealistic. She says sub-notebooks, such as Classmate, are now being mass-produced around the $200 mark. Economy of scale will bring costs down, eventually, as will Moore's Law, which postulates that, as the number of transistors double on a chip every 18 months, the cost of production comes down as computing power increases. "So getting to $100 is not as farfetched as it seems at present."

Griggs says part of Intel's contribution to OLPC will be a holistic view.

South African OLPC proponent Antoine van Gelder has pointed out that the programme comes without educational or local content, connectivity or training for teachers.

Griggs says these are all elements of the Intel view, and "that won't change". Intel and a consortium of local partners are already developing SA-specific local content for Classmate and OLPC.