The idea was big, exciting and inspiring: What if we could make every child in the world have access to a computer? For a group of Silicon Valley thinkers and executives, it seemed like the way to fix everything. But the One Laptop Per Child initiative and the XO-1 laptop designed for gifting were more complicated than anyone expected.
In the next episode of version history, David Pierce joins The edge‘s Adi Robertson and technology journalist David Imel to find out why OLPC didn’t work, whether there’s anything to learn from the XO-1’s innovative design, and whether this kind of computer giveaway could ever succeed.
We are in the middle of the fifth season of Version history and we have been touring the icons of educational technology in schools. If you didn’t listen to the lead game designer of Oregon Trail or simply how much The edgeNilay Patel loved his TI-82 graphing calculator, watch those episodes here:
If you want to know more about the history of OLPC, here are some links to get you started:
