Originally unveiled to the international development world as the $100 Laptop, later upped to a more reasonable $175 (as Amanie has written
here), the
One-Laptop-per-Child (OLPC) initiative has decided that beginning November 12, it will now offer a "Give 1, Get 1" deal for North American residents.
The price tag?
For $399 you will receive an XO-1 laptop at home and also donate one to a child in a developing nation. Obviously this is a smart marketing ploy and will make all the supporters of the project giddy that they can do good and have a new toy at the same time. It is still important to question the efficacy of this laptop to bridge the digital divide and provide education to needy children.
On top of it all, EA announced today that they are
donating the original version of SimCity to each computer in the OLPC initiative, which the company claims is the first time a major video game publisher has gifted a game to the world. It apparently will "provide children with a way to engage with computers while learning decision-making skills".
Although a generous donation, I am highly skeptical of how this additional software actually follows the OLPC mandate. How can children learn from it when the environment of SimCity is so drastically removed from their lifestyles? Where is the line drawn between pure knowledge and corporate sponsored knowledge? It seems to me that Nicholas Negroponte's vision is slowly being manipulated into a self-gratifying project of the developed world.
