| [December 04, 2007] |
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Birmingham, Alabama Commits to One Laptop Per Child
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. --(Business Wire)-- The City of Birmingham, Alabama has signed a memorandum of understanding to purchase 15,000 XO laptops from One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization created to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently affordable to provide every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression. The XO laptops, to be distributed to children and teachers from grades 1-8, are part of the city's commitment to improve the quality of life for its children by, among other things, raising the quality of their educational experience both in the school system and in their homes.
"Birmingham's participation in the One Laptop per Child project is an important step forward in improving the future of our city," said Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford. "We live in a digital age so it is important that all our children have equal access to technology and are able to integrate it into all aspects of their lives. We are proud that Birmingham is on its way to eliminating the so-called 'digital divide' and to ensuring that our children have state-of-the-art tools for education."
"We applaud the city of Birmingham for being the first city in the United States to equip all its primary and middle school children with laptops," said Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of One Laptop per Child. "While our focus to date has been on children in the developing world, there is no question that there is a digital divide here at home. It's great to see an American city taking proactive steps to close the divide and to provide its youngest citizens with equal access to technology and learning."
The XO laptops will be distributed to the children of Birmingham by April 15, 2008.
About One Laptop per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC at http://www.laptop.org) is a non-profit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and others from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. These XO laptops are rugged, open source, and so energy efficient that they can be powered by a child manually. Mesh networking gives many machines Internet access from one connection. The pricing goal is $100.
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