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Colombia Buys 65,000 XO Laptops
Fri, 06 Jun 2008
Colombia has become the latest country to buy into the One Laptop Per Child scheme by purchasing laptops for 65,000 children. School children in the Caldas region of the country will soon receive an XO laptop, with first 15,000 XO laptops to go to children in small towns and rural areas, with the remaining 50,000 to be distributed over the next 18 months to the country’s larger towns. The Colombian government is also in the process of negotiating a deal with the One Laptop Per Child foundation to purchase XO laptops for school children in the region of Manizales.

It is the latest sign that the One Laptop Per Child organisation could yet prove a success despite its early hindrances. Initially, the scheme was faced with a number of problems including the rising cost of the XO laptop, with its initially advertised cost of $100 rocketing to $188, as well as questions from government ministers of developing countries as to whether laptops were really required. However, having recently agreed a deal with Microsoft to run Windows XP on the machines, the OLPC scheme could yet prove to be a success.