Podcast: Interview with Director of ‘One Laptop Per Child’ Program

I finally got to see the $100 laptop in real life. It looked like a toy. Makes sense, because it was intended for kids. I spent a few minutes working on the laptop and it wasn’t user friendly. Definitely not for a kid in village.

I had lots of questions and the best way to get them answered is from someone from the core team who brought out the laptop…. and SJ Klein is just the man. He is the Director of Content at the OLPC project at Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

We met up at Croatia during the iCommons Summit where he was a speaker and chatted up about the laptop. I learnt many interesting things…

* The $100 laptop actually costs $170 to make.
* The laptop can be powered up winding a spindle. Just like the cars of yesteryear.
* It can also be powered by normal car batteries, should electricity fail.
* It automatically detects other laptops and forms a network.

There’s many more interesting facts I learnt from the conversation. I recommend you listen to the podcast.

Note: For some reason, the pitch of the podcast has varied, and hence the podcast sounds a bit slower than usual. But its OK for listening.