The One Laptop Per Child (laptop.org) is a US$100 laptop that promises to revolutionise education and development among some of the world's poorest children. According to the OLPC Foundation, "starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time in North America. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home." In other words, $400 gets your child a laptop, and another one is sent to a needy child in the developing world. And, your child gets a pen-pal in that child, since they can stay in touch via e-mail. You can donate here.

As they say, touch a child's life and you never know what other lives might be touched in turn. Read more about the OLPC and the "Get 1 Give 1" program in this New York Times article.

There has been a lot of negative comments about what's wrong with the laptop — no hard drive, no CD/DVD drive, etc. But until you see one in operation, you have no idea what a powerful idea this rabbit-eared laptop represents, and about its potential to change the world. This YouTube video review by David Pogue of the New York Times also shows what a powerful kid-magnet the OLPC is.

According to Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC founder and former chairman of MIT's Media Lab, complaining about the perceived shortcomings of the laptop is "as if people spent all of their attention focusing on Columbus’s boat and not on where he was going". Walter Bender, a computer researcher who served as director of the Media Laboratory after Mr. Negroponte and now heads software development for the laptop project, likens the XO to a Trojan Horse — “the soldiers inside this Trojan horse are children with laptops.”