Give One Get One
The mission of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is to empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child. In order to accomplish this goal, they need people who believe in what they’re doing and want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege.
Between November 12 and November 26, One Laptop Per Child is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate an XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution. This is the first time the XO laptop has been made available to the general public.
For your donation of only $399, you will be sending one XO laptop a child in a developing nation and one will be sent to the child in your life (or yourself) in recognition of your contribution. $200 of your donation is tax-deductible (your $399 donation minus the fair market value of the XO laptop you will be receiving). For all U.S. donors who participate in the Give One Get One program, T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary HotSpot access.
This is a great opportunity to give and receive. You can be among the first to get your hand on an XO laptop and empower a child at the same time. Thanks to Colin Dean for making me aware of this program. I’ve placed my order. How about you?
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(8 votes, average: 2.88 out of 5)
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WOW . . . great idea! I’m gonna post about this too!
I seen this before but the ony problem is that this computer is not very powerful so what are you going to do with the second latop you can’t really give it to any child in the US they will not use it because it’s not that powerful. My phone cpu is better then this one
You can donate the one you receive!!
I’d rather keep it and see what else people find uses for with it
Yeah same. It looks like a cute decorative item.
Any programmers here?
Hack it!
That would be a great idea!
Exactly. The child who will get to use it in a developing country will be using it for low end purposes rather than the stuff that children in the USA and Canada use computers for. It will help two children instead of one.
Fantastic idea, we should all do what we can to educate the future leaders of the world.
Whoohoo, Colin got linked finally!
Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention, John. =D
I agree. It’s great that you mention this oportunity on your blog.
I think it’ll spread quit a bit now. I’m writing an entry as we speak.
[...] John Chow just IM’d me and told me about this great promotion for the Laptop per Child project, which if you don’t remember, was a project started by some people in MIT to provide children in developing countries with a way to join the rest of the technological world. Originally, the estimates were about $100 per laptop, but of course there were some costs of production increases and it’s now $200, which still isn’t a bad deal. [...]
This sure will be a very nice gift for my child….if I will have one in my life.
I think the OLPC could change the future of our world. The think that makes me most hopeful about it is how underpowered it is in terms of ram and hard drive. I trust that kids with this in their hands are going to do some amazing things, and they are going to have to do it on very spare code.
The computer you have now is probably 20x more powerful than one you had 8 years ago, but is it 20x faster? No it is not.
And why not? Because the code running the operating system and the programs gets more and more bloated every year.
If there are going to be a million kids programing on a laptop with 256 MB of Ram (I have 4 GB) and 1 GB of storage (I have 1,000 times that, but I ‘m a photographer) then they will have to learn to do things with as little wasted code as possible. I think we will all benefit from that down the line.
Thanks for posting and bring attention to this John. I believe it is a great cause and less developed countries need to get computers in their hands anyway they can. They are great learning tools, and will hopefully help these countries develop and grow.
This is a brilliant idea for a great cause. Great post John.
I heard about this on the news a few weeks ago. I bought two. It’s a great program!
I don’t know what I’m going to do with my two free laptops though.
Sincerest thanks for posting about OLPC and G1G1, John.
And congrats to you for being linked. =D
[...] I want to thank John Chow for accepting my challenge by participating in G1G1 and posting about it on his blog, which has an immense readership. John is an incredible authority on search engine optimization and [...]
Yeah, I saw this program on 60 minutes.. I mean the accessible laptop for every child in Africa. I heard they are going to have a $100 laptop..
That was the plan. This is the first version. Components haven’t quite dropped to the $100 price range they’re searching for, but this is a start.
Wow give AND receive? Very niiiiiceeee.
There is nothing better then getting something back for giving. That is a real good cause too.
Donation for good cause with immediate reward. I think it will motivate some to take that $399 out of their pockets/bank and spend for some really good cause while receiving the “tax deductable receipts” at the same time.
I don’t know… but maybe we should worry about reading, writing, math, AIDs, food and electricity before we decide we need to provide laptops. Am I the only one out there that thinks that this campaign is nuts? I truly believe that this is simply going to create a great black market and no one is going to have the resources (electricity or bandwidth) for this to make a difference.
Sorry I sound so negative. I just think the last thing a kid needs in a developing country is a laptop.
you know they probably will be able to read and write more with a laptop in their hands . . . also, from what i know, there is a crank system built into the laptop to generate it’s own electricity, so that wouldn’t be a problem . . . . instead of always thinking “why we shouldn’t . .” . . . it’s maybe time we think . . “why shouldn’t we?”
I’m with Douglas
How disconnected are we that we think they need LAPTOPS of all things?? How about clean water - food - education - training — !! You don’t need a laptop to be educated, whoever suggests that is simply an idiot. You can spend $200 giving a laptop to a kid in East Timor, or you could pay for almost his entire schooling career through the Oaktree Foundation. Your choice.
The laptops are meant for education. To connect them to the rest of the world. Have you even looked at the project? They’re including things such as dictionaries, wikis, and more. These laptops aren’t meant for gaming or socializing, they’re meant for learning.
Yes, food, medicine, and clean water are good as well, but there’ve been charities for all of these for years. If people really think laptops are going to help, then so be it! I forsee a greater percentage of money being spent on these than the other charities for some reason.
Obsidian, Great to see you clarifying the goals of the project. I hope some misconceptions have be sorted out
you ever hear that saying . . . . something about teaching them to fish than fishing for them? which lasts longer?
…and here I thought John Chow was all evil
I guess there is a bit of good in everybody
Too bad this is only for USA and Canada. It looks like a cool laptop.
I’m sure it’ll appear on eBay soon
It depends on the angle from which you look at him. Looking at him from todays angle, JC is an angel. If other high profile bloggers can join him there will be a huge buzz in the blogosphere.
great post..this type of actions must be done more often by people!
I hope this works well. I am in the UK but it sounds liek a great idea
Interesting way to send in a tax-deductible donation that includes a bonus for the donater. Sadly, I don’t have money
The laptop looks sweet too..
-Mike
Wasn’t this supposed to be the $100 laptop? Obviously it’s costing more than that to manufacture. So the $100 laptop becomes a $400 laptop with a $200 tax deductible tagged on? Strange.
At least it’s going to be easier for those nigerian lottery letters to get out with every child in a developing country discovering the internets
Right now, it’s a $200 laptop because you’re getting two. The plan is to bring the price down to $100 by 2008.
Once they find cheaper components (which have been going down since the project started), and once they start producing the units on a larger scale, the price will go down.
I don’t comment much but I wanted to let you know that while I was going to do this anyway, this post was a great reminder/motivator and spurred me to actually pull the trigger on a donation. What’s even better is that they accept PayPal (eBay is helping them out) so I didn’t even have to pull out my wallet.
Excellent post JC.
hey john, here is t-mobile’s press release: http://www.t-mobile.com/company/PressReleases_Article.aspx?assetName=Prs_Prs_20071102&title=T-Mobile%20USA%20Partners%20with%20One%20Laptop%20per%20Child
thanks for keeping us aware. i’m going to check into this more when i get home.
[...] was informed of this donation opportunity through Gary Lee and John Chow’s blog [...]
This is a great way to donate!! Thanks John.
I was actually gonna buy one for the poor kids even without the 1 for 1 promotion.
Though did you know there are reviews on the web that say this OLPC laptop is servely crippled to make this cheap price?
You can only do so much with what you have.
It’s not about the software being crippled, but the actual hardware going into the machines. There’s only so much you can add to keep the price low, and that’s what they project aims to do. These aren’t meant for consumers.
Think about the little toy laptops in the mid-90s with all the learning games. This is what the OLPC will replace.
This is a good way to help child in developing countries. What a good idea!
I am a child in a developing nation!!
But seriously John Chow, I truly applaud that you use your formidable influence and social clout to spread worthwhile messages and attempt to make a difference to others far less fortunate than you. Keep up the good work!
I went to check their site, and for this 1G1G program, you pay for 2 and they will send one to a child in the 4 countries listed, i..e, Afgan, Cambodia, Haiti and Rwanda.
As soon as I read John’s post this evening, I posted an alert to my Indonesian language blog. But then upon checking further, I realized that it would take a group donations of 10,000+ unit with $200/unit that you would be able to send it to whoever or which group you choose. For 100+ unit, you could only send 60% while the rest will be send by them to the group they’ve chosen, and if you increase it to 1000+ then you get another 20% to make it 80/20. I still think it’s a good program and TG that John is 50/50 or may be less in terms of the root of all evils.
http://www.obsidianprofile.com/index.php/blog/entry/1195011495
Read that before bashing some of the aspects of OLPC.
I have heard of this somewhere as i stumbled, i thought it was a great idea, but it was not within my budget otherwise, i would have done the same like how i donate to the gospel to feed the children.
Etienne
But you can still write a nice post about it on your blog. I am sure some of your readers will be able to either buy or spread the word further to some prospective buyers.