It is often said that children hold the future of a country and we should make them educated in the proper and best way, which is one of the main requirements that is demanded in all the circumstances. One such project is the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) Project, which provides children all over the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.The OLPC Project was founded by Nicholas Negroponte with a core of MIT Media Lab veterans. However, its spectrum quickly widened so that a wide range of exceptionally talented and dedicated people from academia, industry, the arts, business, and the open-source community could also be included for the same project. As a lot of people have been involved in this work, there exists a good combination of a unique skill set and a deep personal passion, for the project. The faculty members of the MIT Media Lab also formed an OLPC Association that was seen as a non-profit organization and which was set up to oversee The Children’s Machine Project and the construction of the XO-1 “$100 laptop”. The announcement of the project and the organization was made at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005. The five core principles of the OLPC Project are: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and (5) free and open source.  The project is funded by a number of sponsor organizations, which include AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, SES, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. Each of these companies has made a donation of US$2 million. Intel was also a member of the OLPC Association for a brief period in 2007. They resigned from their membership in January this year, citing disagreements with the organization’s founder Negroponte.FOCUS ON INDIAIn India, the groundwork for the OLPC Project commenced in April, 2006, when Negroponte laid out a proposal to the Government of India to sell one million laptops, at the rate of US$100 per unit. However, the idea was considered unsuitable and was rejected by the Indian Ministry of Human Resources Development. The Project’s aim was to distribute Linux-based laptops free of charge to needy children in the developing countries. The Government of India thought that the US$100 million amount would be better used for primary education rather than the digital empowerment scheme, whose effectiveness and possibility are debatable. Concerns about the physical and psychological effects of intensive laptop use on children’s health were among the main objections raised by the government. Keeping its endeavors in line, the OLPC Initiative took a big step in India. In October, last year, the first pilot project by OLPC was launched in India at a school in a tribal village at Khairat, near Karjat in the state of Maharashtra. In this village, the school children were provided with laptops, and there was training for teachers to incorporate new ways of imparting education.

The OLPC-India Foundation has been formed and it comprises corporate partners, non-profit organizations, Education Ministers at State Level, bureaucrats, and most importantly: interested volunteers. The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has also collaborated with the OLPC Foundation to bring the latter’s much-hyped $100 laptop to India in order to promote e-learning among poor children. Reliance Communications (RCom) will provide Internet connectivity, network backbone, logistics, and support to the OLPC initiative. The initiative aims at covering over 25,000 towns, and 6,00,000 villages in the country this year. Some people had branded the concept as “captivating in its utter simplicity”. Consequently, many world leaders like the former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan and global companies that include marquee names like AMD, News Corp, Google, and Red Hat showed great support for the Project. But, the concept did not really catch on as per expectations. Initial predictions were that the Project would sell at least 100 million laptops to developing countries by 2008, but according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, “only about 2,000 students in pilot programs have received computers from the One Laptop Project.”  OLPC DOCUMENTATION The aim of OLPC Documentation is threefold:

1. To provide the explicit set of writing conventions such that the instructions are conveyed in a simple and non ambiguous manner to the audience.
2. The documentation is primarily in English. The English version acts as a source for translation of instructions to other languages.
3. It aims to use or create collaboration tools that will in turn make the translation, distribution and maintenance of the documents easy. 

 Due to these primary aims, the OLPC documentation differs from documentation of other projects. Children-Friendly Laptop The laptop used in the OLPC Project is designed in a child friendly way with a graphic user interface that can easily be networked. The idea conveyed is that it is all about community and collaboration—working and playing together to learn, create and communicate. This laptop provides learners with opportunities that they have not had before. Tools like Web browser, rich media player, and e-book reader bring into reach domains of knowledge that are otherwise difficult-or impossible-for children to access. It also helps children build upon their active interest in the world around them to engage with powerful ideas. Tools for writing, composing, simulating, expressing, constructing, designing, modeling, imagining, creating, critiquing, debugging, and collaborating let children become positive, contributing members of their communities.   Other Factors In India, the OLPC Project objectives are different from that of OLPC Foundation. It was noticed that OLPC would find it difficult to take off in India too unless the project was promoted only as a low-cost laptop-scheme for the poor children. Further, it needs to be promoted as an integral education system where a cheap laptop would be an important tool.” Thus, OLPC India’s effort, would include content development, proper technical training of teachers (due to difficulty in getting proper technical teachers), creating an appropriate infrastructure like a network, etc – a combination of all these would give a good foundation through which the concept could be spread and computers could be distributed. India (Pilot Project launched in Khairat Village, near Karjat in Maharashtra)
http://laptop.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_India
http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/11/olpc-makes-its-entry-into-india-finally.html
http://www.techtree.com/India/News/RCom_Brings_100_Laptop_to_India/551-83822-549.html
http://www.tech2.com/india/news/laptops/reliance-olpc-foundation-team-up/19411/0
http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/technologywalla/post.htm?id=39380301
http://www.techtree.com/India/News/RCom_Brings_100_Laptop_to_India/551-83822-549.html
http://www.govtech.com/gt/216153?topic=118264
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/localization/2007-October/000041.html