Libya buys $100 laptops
p2pnet.net News:- Libya is the latest country to buy MIT’s $100 laptops for its 1.2 million schoolchildren.
The $250 million deal, scheduled for completion by June 2008, “could make Libya the first nation to enable all school-age children to connect to the Internet through educational computers,” the Associated Press has Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child, saying.
Negroponte said he met with Moammar Gadhafi, “and the project appealed to the Libyan leader’s political agenda of creating a more open country and becoming an African leader, says the story.
“The two men discussed the possibility that Libya would also pay for laptops for poorer African nations like Chad, Niger and Rwanda, he said.”
The meeting, “had all the mystique and trimmings expected: middle of the desert, in a tent, 50 degrees C. etc,” The New York Times quotes Negroponte as saying.
“Diplomatic relations between the United States and Libya have warmed recently, since Tripoli settled the Pan Am 103 bombing case and agreed to renounce its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” says the story, adding, “Washington lifted a trade embargo two years ago, and the State Department rescinded Libya’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism last June.”
t was recently revealed that the hand-cranked laptops, now estimated to cost around $138 each instead of $100, will be so secure they may not need anti-virus software.
Also See:
Associated Press – Agreement gives all Libyan kids laptops, October 11, 2004
The New York Times – U.S. Group Reaches Deal to Provide Laptops to All Libyan Schoolchildren, October 11, 2004
so secure – $100 Laptops: ultra secure, October 7, 2006
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October 15th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
I would love to put windows lite xp on these machines and I could have a great machine tweaked and cheap!!