The One Laptop per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is a U.S.

non-profit
organization set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device
for use in the developing world. Its mission is "to create educational opportunities
for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost,
low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for
collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning." Negroponte states that the
mission is to eliminate poverty. Its current focus is on the development,
construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop and its successors.

OLPC XO-1

The organization is led by the Foundation's Chairman Nicholas Negroponte, and

the Association's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rodrigo Arboleda
Halaby. OLPC is a non-profit organization funded by member organizations such
as AMD, eBay, Google, News Corporation, Red Hat, and Marvell.

As of March 2010, there are 2 million free books available for OLPC computers.
OLPC has generated a great deal of interest in the Information and
Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), Information and
Communication Technologies in Education and one to one computing fields of
research.

Mission

OLPC's mission and core principles

To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing
each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and
software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.
—OLPC Mission Statement,
It's an education project, not a laptop project.
—Nicholas Negroponte

The goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new
opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end,
OLPC is designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and
distribution system to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise
unavailable technological learning opportunities.

OLPC lists five core principles:

1. The kids keep the laptops.

2. Focus on early education.
3. No one gets left out.
4. Connection to the internet.
5. Free to grow and adapt.

History

Children in a remote Cambodian school where a pilot laptop program has been in
place since 2001

OLPC is based on constructionist learning theories pioneered by Seymour

Papert, Alan Kay, and also on the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte’s
book Being Digital These three individuals plus the several sponsor organizations
are active participants in OLPC.

Many concepts preceding the OLPC project were discussed and explored at a
number of conferences. The 2B1 Conference, held in 1997 at the Media Lab
brought together educators from developing countries around the world to "break
down world barriers of race, age, gender, language, class, economics and
geography." The most immediate outcome of that conference was the
establishment of the Nation1 project and the Junior Summit, held the following
year, although many of the sessions at 2B1 helped inform OLPC.

Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005 and were created by faculty
members of the MIT Media Lab. The OLPC project gained much more attention
when Nicholas Negroponte and Kofi Annan unveiled a working prototype of the
Children's Machine 1 (CM1) on November 16, 2005 at the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia. Negroponte showed two prototypes
of the CM1 laptop at the second phase of the World Summit: a non working
physical model and a tethered version using an external board and separate
keyboard. The device shown was a rough prototype using a standard
development board. Negroponte estimated that the screen alone required three
more months of development. The first working prototype was demonstrated at
the project's Country Task Force Meeting on May 23, 2006. The production
version is expected to have a larger display screen in the same size package.
The laptops were originally scheduled to be available by early 2007, but
production actually began in November, 2007.

At the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) announced it would back the laptop. UNDP
released a statement saying they would work with OLPC to deliver "technology
and resources to targeted schools in the least developed countries".

The project originally aimed for a price of 100 US dollars. In May 2006,
Negroponte told the Red Hat's annual user summit: "It is a floating price. We are
a nonprofit organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be
$135, maybe $140." A BBC news article in April 2010 indicated the price still
remains above $200.

Mass production

OLPC XO-1 original design proposal

When the laptop started mass production in November 2007, the unit price was
estimated to be $188 when bought by thousand units. At the same time, the
laptop was made available under the "Give 1 Get 1" program at $199 for a single
unit, or $399 for 2 units.

Mary Lou Jepsen was CTO until her resignation at the end of 2007 to found a
new company, Pixel Qi, to continue the development and commercialization of
ideas from the XO.

Intel was a member of the association for a brief period in 2007. It resigned its
membership on 3 January 2008, citing disagreements with requests from OLPC's
founder, Nicholas Negroponte, for Intel to stop dumping their Classmate PCs.
Ivan Krstić (former OLPC Director of Security Architecture) resigned in late
February 2008 because, he said, learning wasn't what the OLPC was about even
for Negroponte (see quote below). On April 22, 2008, Walter Bender, who was
the former President of Software and Content for the OLPC project, stepped
down from his post and left OLPC to found Sugar Labs. Bender reportedly had a
disagreement with Negroponte about the future of the OLPC and their future
partnerships. Negroponte also showed some doubt about the exclusive use of
open source software for the project and made suggestions supporting a move
towards adding Windows XP which Microsoft was in the process of porting over
to the XO hardware. Microsoft's Windows XP, however, is not seen by some as a
sustainable operating system. Microsoft announced on May 16, 2008, that
Windows XP would be offered as an option on XO-1 laptops and possibly be able
to dual boot alongside Linux.

OLPC XO-1 laptop in Ebook-Mode.

Charles Kane became the new President and Chief Operating Officer of the
OLPC Association on May 2, 2008. In late 2008, the NYC Department of
Education began a project to purchase large numbers of XO computers for use
by New York schoolchildren.

Advertisements for OLPC began streaming on the video streaming website Hulu
and others in 2008. One such ad has John Lennon advertising for OLPC, with an
unknown voice actor redubbing over Lennon's voice.

The 2008 economic downturn and increased netbook competition reduced

OLPC's annual budget from $12 million to $5 million and a major restructuring
resulted effective January 7, 2009. Development of the Sugar operating
environment was moved entirely into the community, the Latin America support
organization was spun out and staff reductions, including Jim Gettys, affected
approximately 50% of the paid employees. The remaining 32 staff members also
saw salary reductions.
Impact on the PC industry

Although OLPC was unable to lower costs to reach their initial target price of
$100, their mere presence in the industry has exerted competitive force on other
manufacturers of consumer notebooks (such as Acer and Hewlett-Packard) to
launch their own lower-cost devices that could be used both in developing
countries and in the industrialised world.

In addition, software companies like Microsoft contributed to lowering costs by

offering Windows, Office, and other educational programs at $3 each when used
in schools. This substantial discount led to OLPC allowing Windows on the XO.

Technology

Main article: OLPC XO-1

See also: Sugar (GUI) and OLPC XS

OLPC XO-1 laptop

The XO-1, previously known as the "$100 Laptop" or "Children's Machine", is an

inexpensive laptop computer designed to be distributed to children in developing
countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge, and
opportunities to "explore, experiment and express themselves" (constructionist
learning).The laptop is manufactured by the Taiwanese computer company
Quanta Computer.

The rugged, low-power computers use flash memory instead of a hard drive, run
a Fedora-based operating system and use the Sugar user interface. Mobile ad-
hoc networking based on the 802.11s wireless mesh network protocol allows
students to collaborate on activities and to share Internet access from one
connection. The wireless networking has much greater range than typical
consumer laptops. The XO-1 has also been designed to be lower cost and much
longer-lived than typical laptops.
OLPC XO-2 design study (retired)

The laptops include an anti-theft system which can, optionally, require each
laptop to periodically make contact with a server to renew its cryptographic lease
token. If the cryptographic lease expires before the server is contacted, the
laptop will be locked until a new token is provided. The contact may be to a
country-specific server over a network or to a local, school-level server that has
been manually loaded with cryptographic "lease" tokens that enable a laptop to
run for days or even months between contacts. Cryptographic lease tokens can
be supplied on a USB flash drive for non-networked schools. The mass
production laptops are also tivoized, disallowing installation of additional software
or replacement of the operating system. Users interested in development need to
obtain the unlocking key separately (most developer laptops for Western users
already come unlocked). It is claimed that locking prevents unintentional bricking
and is part of the anti-theft system.

Microsoft developed a modified version of Windows XP and announced in May

2008 that Windows XP will be available for an additional cost of 10 dollars per
laptop.

In 2009, OLPC announced an updated XO (dubbed XO-1.5) that takes

advantage of the latest component technologies. The XO-1.5 includes a new VIA
C7-M processor and a new chipset providing a 3D graphics engine and an HD
video decoder. It has 1GB of RAM memory and built-in storage of 4 GB, with an
option for 8 GB. The XO-1.5 uses the same display, and a network wireless
interface with half the power dissipation. Early prototype versions of the hardware
were available in June 2009, and they are available for software development
and testing available for free through a developer's program.
XO-3 concept

An XO-1.75 model is being developed that will use an ARM processor, targeting
a price below $150 and date in 2011.

An XO-3 concept resembles a tablet computer and is planned to have the inner
workings of the XO 1.75. Price goal is below $100 and date is 2012. The XO-2
two sheet design concept was canceled in favor of the one sheet XO-3.

As of May 2010, OLPC is working with Marvell on other unspecified future tablet
designs. In October 2010, both OLPC and Marvell signed an agreement granting
OLPC $5.6 million to fund development of its XO-3 next generation tablet
computer. The tablet should use a ARM chip from Marvell.

XO-1 Specifications

Physical dimensions

• Approximate dimensions: 242 mm × 228 mm × 32 mm;

• Approximate weight: 1.45 kg with LiFeP battery; 1.58 kg with NiMH
battery;
• Configuration: Convertible laptop with pivoting, reversible display; dirt- and
moisture-resistant system enclosure; no fan.

Core electronics

• CPU: x86-compatible processor with 64 KiB each L1 I and D caches; at

least 128 KiB L2 cache; AMD Geode LX-700 @ 0.8 W;
• CPU clock speed: 433 MHz;
• ISA compatibility: Support for both the MMX and 3DNow! x86 instruction-
set extensions; Athlon instruction set (including MMX and 3DNow!
Enhanced) with additional Geode-specific instructions;
 • Companion chips: PCI and memory interface integrated with CPU; North
Bridge: PCI and Memory Interface integrated with Geode CPU; AMD
CS5536 South Bridge;
• Graphics controller: Integrated with Geode CPU; unified memory
architecture;
• Embedded controller: ENE KB3700 or ENE KB3700B;
• DRAM memory:
o 256 MiB dynamic RAM;
o Data rate: Dual — DDR333 — 166 MHz;
• 1024 KB SPI-interface flash ROM;
• Mass storage: 1024 MiB SLC NAND flash, high-speed flash controller;
• Drives: No rotating media;
• CAFE ASIC (Camera, Flash Enabler chip, provides high-performance
Camera, NAND FLASH and SD interfaces); Marvell 88ALP01: (CAFE
specification).

Display

• Liquid-crystal display: 7.5” Dual-mode TFT display;

• Viewing area: 152.4 mm × 114.3 mm;
• Resolution: 1200 (H) × 900 (V) resolution (200 DPI);
• Monochrome display: High-resolution, reflective sunlight-readable
monochrome mode; Color display: Standard-resolution, Quincunx-
sampled, transmissive color mode;
• LCD power consumption: 0.1 watt with backlight off; 0.2–1.0 watt with
backlight on;
• The display-controller chip (DCON) with memory that enables the display
to remain live with the processor suspended; the display and this chip are
the basis of the extremely low power architecture; the display controller
chip also enables de-swizzling and anti-aliasing in color mode.

Integrated peripherals

Internet access through wireless mesh networking

 • Keyboard: 80+ keys, 1.0 mm stroke; sealed rubber-membrane key-switch
assembly;
• Keyboard layout pictures: international, Thai, Arabic, Spanish,
Portuguese, West African, Urdu, Mongolian, Cyrillic, Amharic;
• Gamepad: Two sets of four-direction cursor-control keys;
• Touchpad: Dual capacitance/resistive touchpad; supports written-input
mode; ALPS Electric Dual capacitive/resistive touchpad;
• Audio: AC97-compatible audio audio subsystem; internal stereo speakers
and amplifier; internal monophonic microphone; jacks for external
headphones and microphone; Analog Devices AD1888 and Analog
Devices SSM2211 for audio amplification;
• Wireless networking: Integrated 802.11b/g (2.4 GHz) interface; 802.11s
(Mesh) networking supported; dual adjustable, rotating coaxial antennas;
supports diversity reception; capable of mesh operation when CPU is
powered down; Marvell Libertas 88W8388 controller and 88W8015 radio;
• Status indicators: Power, battery, WiFi (2); visible when lid is open or
closed; microphone in-use and camera in-use visible when lid is open;
• Video camera: integrated color vision camera; 640×480 resolution at 30
Hz; Omnivision OV7670.

External connectors

• DC power: 6 mm (1.65 mm center pin) connector; 11 to 18 V input usable,

−32 to 40 V input tolerated; power draw limited to 15 W;
• Headphone output: Standard 3.5 mm 3-pin switched stereo audio jack;
• Microphone input: Standard 3.5 mm 2-pin switched mono microphone
jack; selectable 2V DC bias; selectable sensor-input mode (DC or AC
coupled);
• USB: Three Type-A USB-2.0 connectors; up to 1 A power supplied (total);
• Flash expansion: MMC/SD Card slot.

Anatomy of the OLPC

Battery

• Pack type: 2 or 4 cells LiFePO4; or 5 cells NiMH, approximately 6 V series

configuration;
• Capacity: 22.8 watt-hours (LiFePO4); 16.5 watt-hours (NiMH);
• Fully enclosed "hard" case; user removable;
• Electronics integrated with pack provide:
o Identification;
o Battery charge and capacity information;
o Thermal and over-current sensors along with cutoff switch to
protect battery;
• Minimum 2,000 charge/discharge cycles (to 50% capacity of new);

Distribution

Distribution model

At a primary school in Kigali, Rwanda in 2009

The laptops are sold to governments, to be distributed through the ministries of

education with the goal of distributing "one laptop per child". The laptops are
given to students, similar to school uniforms and ultimately remain the property of
the child. The operating system and software is localized to the languages of the
participating countries.

Early deployments

Approximately 500 developer boards (Alpha-1) were distributed in mid-2006; 875

working prototypes (Beta 1) were delivered in late 2006; 2400 Beta-2 machines
were distributed at the end of February 2007; full-scale production started
November 6, 2007. Around one million units were manufactured in 2008.

Give 1 Get 1 program

See also: Give One Get One

OLPC initially stated that no consumer version of the XO laptop was planned.
The project, however, later established the laptopgiving.org website to accept
direct donations and ran a "Give 1 Get 1" (G1G1) offer starting on November 12,
2007. The offer was initially scheduled to run for only two weeks, but was
extended until December 31, 2007 to meet demand. With a donation of $399
(plus US$25 shipping cost) to the OLPC "Give 1 Get 1" program, donors
received an XO-1 laptop of their own and OLPC sent another on their behalf to a
child in a developing country. Shipments of "Get 1" laptops sent to donors were
restricted to addresses within the United States, its territories, and Canada.

Some 83,500 donors participated in the program. Delivery of all of the G1G1
laptops was completed by April 19, 2008. Delays were blamed on order
fulfillment and shipment issues both within OLPC and with the outside
contractors hired to manage those aspects of the G1G1 program.

Give 1 Get 1 2008

Between November 17 and December 31, 2008, a second G1G1 program was
run through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. This partnership was chosen
specifically to solve the distribution issues of the G1G1 2007 program. The price
to consumers was the same as in 2007, at USD$399.

The program aimed to be available worldwide. Laptops could be delivered in the

USA, in Canada and in more than 30 European countries, as well as in some
Central and South American countries (Colombia, Haiti, Peru, Uruguay,
Paraguay), African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Madagascar, Rwanda)
and Asian countries (Afghanistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal).
Despite this, the program sold only about 12,500 laptops and generated a mere
$2.5 million – a 93 percent decline from the year before.

Deployment of XO laptops

Summary of laptop orders

Confirmed
Year number Date confirmed Purchaser
(approximate)
100,000 October 2007 Uruguay
15,000 November 14, 2007 Birmingham, Alabama, United States
2007 260,000 December 1, 2007 Peru
50,000 December 1, 2007 Mexico (Mexican businessman Carlos Slim)
167,000 January 5, 2008 G1G1 2007 program
2008 65,000 May 29, 2008 Colombia (Caldas)
+200,000 June 2008 Uruguay
 +30,000 October 2008 Peru
10,000 November 10, 2008 Ghana
12,500 January 9, 2009 G1G1 2008 program
5,000 April 24, 2009 Sierra Leone
2009 100,000 May 14, 2009 Rwanda
+160,000 October 13, 2009 Uruguay (total: 362,000 children, 18000 teachers)
2010 +260,000 March 17, 2010 Peru
+60,000 April 13, 2010 Argentina
Total 1,494,500

Participating countries

In October 2007, Uruguay placed an order for 100,000 laptops, making Uruguay
the first country to purchase a full order of laptops. The first real, non-pilot
deployment of the OLPC technology happened in Uruguay in December 2007.
Since then, 200,000 more laptops have been ordered to cover all public school
children between 6 and 12 years old.

President Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay presented the final laptop at a school in

Montevideo on 13 October 2009. Over the last two years 362,000 pupils and
18,000 teachers have been involved, and has cost the state $260 (£159) per
child, including maintenance costs, equipment repairs, training for the teachers
and internet connection. The annual cost of maintaining the programme,
including an information portal for pupils and teachers, will be US$21 (£13) per
child.

The country reportedly became the first in the world where every primary school
child received a free laptop on 13 October 2009 as part of the Plan Ceibal
(Education Connect). However, the South Pacific island nation of Niue also
claimed this in August 2008.

Laptops have been delivered to the following countries, either following an order
or as part of the Give One Get One program:

• Africa and Middle East

o Ethiopia (5,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)
o Gaza (2,100 laptops received)
o Ghana (10,000 laptops ordered)
o Rwanda (20,000 laptops received from G1G1 program, 100,000
laptops ordered) Sierra Leone (5,000 laptops ordered)
• Americas
o Argentina (60,000 laptops ordered)
o Colombia (4,000 laptops ordered)
 o Haiti (13,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)
o Mexico (50,000 laptops ordered by businessman Carlos Slim)
o Peru (550,000 laptops ordered, most recently in March 2010)
o United States of America (15,000 laptops ordered by Birmingham,
Alabama) Uruguay (380,000+ given to 1-6 students and teachers,
completing the initial objective. 90,000 ordered in 2010 for high-
school students)
• Asia
o Afghanistan (11,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)
o Cambodia (3,200 laptops received from G1G1 program)
o Mongolia (10,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)
• Oceania
o Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea,
Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu (5,000 laptops received from
G1G1 program)
o Australia (5,000 laptops ordered by the independent non-profit
OLPC Australia)

OLPC in the United States

Originally OLPC announced the United States would not be part of this effort. In
2008, Nicholas Negroponte said "OLPC America already has a director and a
chairman and will likely be based in Washington, D.C.," however such an
organization was not set up. As of 2010, Birmingham, Alabama is the largest
deployment in the US. Some said the changing economic landscape forced
OLPC to adjust their distribution strategy. Negroponte cited patriotism, "building
critical mass", and providing a means for children all over the world to
communicate.

Countries with pilot projects

In Najmi, Al Muthanna Governorate, Iraq

In addition to pilot projects in the participating countries listed above, pilot
projects (from a few dozen to a few hundred laptops) took place or are currently
taking place in the following countries (see also Google map of OLPC pilot
projects):

• Africa – Middle-East
o Iraq (Najmi)
o Lebanon (Sabra and Shatila camps)
o Mali (Quessoborgo)
o Mozambique (Zambezia)
o Nigeria (Abuja)
o South Africa
• Americas
o Brazil (Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro[Piraí])
o Canada(Inuit, Métis and First Nations Communities)
o Nicaragua (Rivas)
o Suriname (Paramaribo)
o Virgin Islands (St John)
• Asia
o India (Khairat)
o Nepal (Lalitpur)
o Pakistan (Rawalpindi)
o Philippines (Manila)
o Thailand (Ban Samkha)

Other interested countries

The following countries have shown interest in the past, but no concrete projects
have resulted up to now:

• Africa: Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Tunisia

• Americas: Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic
• Asia: Sri Lanka
• Europe: Greece

Criticism

An OLPC class in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Controversy regarding mission

OLPC's dedication to "Free and open source" was questioned with their May 15,
2008, announcement that large-scale purchasers would be offered the choice to
add an extra cost, special version of the proprietary Windows XP OS developed
by Microsoft alongside the regular, free and open Linux-based "Sugar" OS.
James Utzschneider, from Microsoft, said that initially only one operating system
could be chosen. OLPC, however, said that future OLPC work would enable XO-
1 laptops to dual boot either the free and open Linux/Sugar OS or the proprietary
Microsoft Windows XP. Negroponte further said that "OLPC will sell Linux-only
and dual-boot, and will not sell Windows-only [XO-1 laptops]". OLPC released
the first test firmware enabling XO-1 dual-boot on July 3, 2008.

OLPC's stated ethos that "It's an education project, not a laptop project" was
contradicted according to Ivan Krstić, OLPC's former Director of Security
Architecture.

Negroponte and Charles Kane made statements explaining OLPC's decision to

enable XO-1 laptops to dual-boot either open source Fedora or proprietary
Microsoft Windows XP:

[Nicholas] Negroponte says that within OLPC, the open-source scrap had
become a distraction. "I think that means and ends, as often happens, got
confused," he says. "The mission is learning and children. The means of
achieving that were, amongst others, open source and constructionism. In the
process of doing that, open source in particular became an end in itself, and we
made decisions along the way to remain very pure in open source that were not
in the long-term interest of the project."
—Nicholas Negroponte, May 2, 2008,
"The OLPC mission is a great endeavor, but the mission is to get the technology
in the hands of as many children as possible," [Charles Kane] said. "Whether that
technology is from one operating system or another, one piece of hardware or
another, or supplied or supported by one consulting company or another doesn't
matter."

"It's about getting it into kids' hands," he continued. "Anything that is contrary to
that objective, and limits that objective, is against what the program stands for."

—Charles Kane, OLPC President and COO, May 2, 2008,

Other discussions question whether OLPC laptops should be designed to

promote anonymity or to facilitate government tracking of stolen laptops. A recent
New Scientist article critiqued Bitfrost's P_THEFT security option, which allows
each laptop to be configured to transmit an individualized, non-repudiable digital
signature to a central server at most once each day to remain functioning.
Approach

Thank You from the Children of OLPC

At The World Summit on the Information Society held by the United Nations in
Tunisia from November 16–18, 2005, several African officials, most notably
Marthe Dansokho of Cameroon and Mohammed Diop of Mali, voiced suspicions
towards the motives of the OLPC project and claimed that the project was using
an overly U.S. mindset that presented solutions not applicable to specifically
African problems. Dansokho said the project demonstrated misplaced priorities,
stating that clean water and schools were more important for African women,
who, he stated, would not have time to use the computers to research new crops
to grow. Diop specifically attacked the project as an attempt to exploit the
governments of poor nations by making them pay for hundreds of millions of
machines.

Lee Felsenstein, a computer engineer who played a central role in the

development of the personal computer, criticized the centralized, top-down
design and distribution of the OLPC, calling it "imperialistic”.

John Wood, founder of Room to Read, emphasizes affordability and scalability

over high-tech solutions. While in favor of the One Laptop per Child initiative for
providing education to children in the developing world at a cheaper rate, he has
pointed out that a $2,000 library can serve 400 children, costing just $5 a child to
bring access to a wide range of books in the local languages (such as Khmer or
Nepali) and English; also, a $10,000 school can serve 400–500 children ($20–
$25 a child). According to Wood, these are more appropriate solutions for
education in the dense forests of Vietnam or rural Cambodia.

The Scandinavian aid organization FAIR proposed setting up computer labs with
recycled second-hand computers as a more economical alternative. Computer
Aid International doubted the OLPC sales strategy would succeed, citing the
"untested" nature of its technology. CAI refurbishes computers and printers and
sends them to developing countries.
Environmental issues

In 2005 and prior to the final design of the XO-1 hardware, OLPC received
criticism because of concerns over the environmental and health impacts of
hazardous materials found in most computers. The OLPC asserted that it aimed
to use as many environmentally friendly materials as it could; that the laptop and
all OLPC-supplied accessories would be fully compliant with the EU's Restriction
of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS); and that the laptop would use an
order of magnitude less power than the typical consumer notebooks available as
of 2007 thus minimizing the environmental burden of power generation.

The XO-1 delivered (starting in 2007) uses environmental friendly materials,

complies with the EU's RoHS and uses between 0.25 and 6.5 watts in operation.
According to the Green Electronics Council's Electronic Product Environmental
Assessment Tool, whose sole purpose is assessing and measuring the impact
laptops have on the environment, the XO is not only non-toxic and fully
recyclable, but it lasts longer, costs less, and is more energy efficient. The XO-1
is the first laptop to have been awarded an EPEAT Gold level rating.

Nigeria

Lagos Analysis Corp., also called Lancor, a Lagos, US-based Nigerians owned
company, sued OLPC in the end of 2007 for $20 million, claiming that the
computer's keyboard design was stolen from a Lancor patented device. OLPC
responded by claiming that they had not sold any multi-lingual keyboards in the
design claimed by Lancor, and that Lancor had misrepresented and concealed
material facts before the court. In January 2008, the Nigerian Federal Court
rejected OLPC motion to dismiss LANCOR's lawsuit and extended its injunction
against OLPC distributing its XO Laptops in Nigeria. OLPC appealed the Court's
decision, the Appeal is still pending in the Nigerian Federal Court of Appeals. In
March 2008 OLPC filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts to stop LANCOR from suing
it in the United States. In October 2008, MIT News magazine erroneously
reported that the Middlesex Superior Court granted OLPC’s motions to dismiss
all of LANCOR’s claims against OLPC, Nicholas Negroponte, and Quanta. In
October 22, 2010 OLPC voluntarily move the Massachusetts Court to dismiss its
own lawsuit against LANCOR.

In 2007, XO laptops in Nigeria were reported to contain pornographic material

belonging to children partaking in the OLPC Program. In response, OLPC made
plans for adding content filters. The OLPC foundation maintained the position
that such issues were societal, not laptop related. Similar responses have led
some to suggest the OLPC takes an indifferent stance concerning this issue.
According to Wayan Vota Senior Director at Inveneo and founder of the
independent OLPC News, "The use of computers to look at porn is [a] social
problem, not a hardware one... Children have to be taught what's good and
what's bad, based on the cultural context."
India

India's Ministry of Human Resource Development, in June 2006, rejected the

initiative, saying “it would be impossible to justify an expenditure of this scale on
a debatable scheme when public funds continue to be in inadequate supply for
well-established needs listed in different policy documents”. Later they stated
plans to make laptops at $10 each for schoolchildren. Two designs submitted to
the Ministry from a final year engineering student of Vellore Institute of
Technology and a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in
May 2007 reportedly describe a laptop that could be produced for "$47 per
laptop" for even small volumes. The Ministry announced in July, 2008 that the
cost of their proposed "$10 laptop" would in fact be $100 by the time the laptop
became available. This project is called Sakshat. In 2009 a combination of states
announced plans to order 250,000 OLPCs.