Here's the 21st century version of a chicken in every pot: a laptop for every child. Nicholas Negroponte, an MIT professor, is founder of One Laptop Per Child, an international non-profit that created the
XO laptop, a durable machine that began mass production in November and is designed for kids in the world's poorest and most remote regions. If nothing else, Negroponte has proven that no grand vision goes unpunished. Last fall a
BusinessWeek writer panned the program in a column titled, "It's Time To Call One Laptop Per Child A Failure."
The Wall Street Journal ran a front page story under the headline, "How a Computer for the Poor Got Stomped by Tech Giants." And it's not just the press. Negroponte has sparred with critics such as Bill Gates of Microsoft and Craig Barnett of Intel. His testy relationship with Intel briefly turned into an uneasy-alliance but blew up this month when, Negroponte says, an Intel salesperson tried to convince the government of Peru to scrap its deal with OLPC and instead buy the company's competing laptop, the Intel Classmate. Intel has blamed the split on "philosophical" differences. Negroponte presses on.
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