Why Brazil's not buying Negroponte's laptops
Owen Thomas · 09/27/07 09:59AMCAMBRIDGE, MASS. — The chasm between Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project's lofty goal — putting computers in the hands of children across the developing world — and its actual achievements is staggeringly wide. Instead of millions of computers, it's struggling to put in an order for a hundred thousand or so. And rather than commanding larger orders from third-world governments, Negroponte is now trying to get first-world consumers to donate laptops instead. A speech by Brazilian culture minister Gilberto Gil Moreira at the EmTech conference gives a pretty good idea why no laptops per child is today's reality.