Rangan Srikhanta was a 21-year-old student at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), in Australia, when he first learned about the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative. It was late 2005, and Nicholas Negroponte, then the director of the Media Lab at MIT, and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan had just announced the launch of the program. OLPC, as they described it, was a partnership among private companies, NGOs, and governments to produce the world’s least expensive laptop and to…

To read this article and start a full year of unlimited online access, subscribe now!

Already a subscriber?

Need to register for your premium online access,
which is included with your paid subscription?

Support SSIR’s coverage of cross-sector solutions to global challenges. 
Help us further the reach of innovative ideas. Donate today.

Read more stories by Danielle Logue & Melissa Edwards.