The $3 Laptop

Via Snazzzz's post in live journal comes the story of the $3 laptop.   First,  "snazz

Inspired by MIT's $100 laptop project and not to be outdone, they've been working on their own educational laptop project and delivered their first working model to Saron, a banking and finance student living in a small village near Prek Eng.  Despite being blind in one eye, he was one of the best computing students at Jayavarman VII High School.

The machine was an ancient laptop, P2, running Windows 98, with a cracked screen.  They had it fixed it!  Snazzz  wonders whether refurbishing older, discarded laptops and getting them to new, less demanding owners in developing country might be a suitable strategy. 

I know there are organisations that recycle desktops (and some laptops) from US and transport them in larger quantities in developing countries.  It can also be done on a smaller scale, as Snazz suggests, "Small numbers of laptops are a much easier proposition - just slip one in your hand luggage."

I know at the Sharing Foundation that's how we been able to stock up the computer school we've set up in the village.  More on that in a bit.

Comments

[traactivity]

Wow...if so it's good to setup computer room for primary school in rural area... but we may no electricity

[Lori Halverson-Wente]

Hello! We are going to Cambodia on December 27, 2006 - We refers to 19 college students and instructors from Rochester, MN - HOME OF IBM. We are engaged in a service learning trip and students have service projects already. BUT we would love to get involved in laptops somehow in the future (I noticed that Stanford has a HUGE project w/this - they set up labs for colleges in Cambodia!). We could still carry some there if people have donations...the problem was finding someone who could update as needed. Please contact me via email!!! :)

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