CAMBRIDGE, Mass.  When computer industry executives heard about a plan to build a $100 laptop for the developing worlds children, they generally ridiculed the idea. How could you build such a computer, they asked, when screens alone cost about $100?  Michail Bletsas, the chief connectivity officer for One Laptop Per Child, plays with some potential computer users in Nigeria.  Mary Lou Jepsen, the chief technologist for the project, likes to refer to the insight that transformed the machine from utopian dream to working prototype as a really wacky idea.  Ms. Jepsen, a former Intel chip designer, found a way to modify conventional laptop displays, cutting the screens manufacturing cost to $40 while reducing its power consumption by more than 80 percent. As a bonus, the display is clearly visible in sunlight.  That advance and others have allowed the nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, to win over many skeptics over the last two and a half years. Five countries  Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria and Thailand  have made tentative commitments to put the computers into the hands of millions of students, with production in Taiwan expected to begin by mid-2007.  The laptop does not come with a Microsoft Windows operating system or even a hard drive, and the screen is small. And the cost is now closer to $150 than $100. But the price tag, even compared with low-end $500 laptops now widely available, transforms the economic equation for developing countries.  That has not prevented the effort, conceived by Nicholas Negroponte, a prominent computer researcher, from becoming the focal point of a debate over the value of computers to both learning and economic development.  The detractors include two computer industry giants, Intel and Microsoft, pushing alternative approaches. Intel has developed a $400 laptop aimed at schools as well as an education program that focuses on teachers instead of students. And Bill Gates, Microsofts chairman and a leading philanthropist for the third world, has questioned whether the concept is just taking what we do in the rich world and assuming that that is something good for the developing world, too.  Mr. Negroponte, the founding director of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, said he was amused by the attention his little machine was getting. It is not the first time he has been challenged for proclaiming technologys promise.  Its as if people spent all of their attention focusing on Columbuss boat and not on where he was going, he said in an interview here. You have to remember that what this is about is education.  Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who is an adviser to the project, has argued that if young people are given computers and allowed to explore, they will learn how to learn. That, Mr. Papert argues, is a more valuable skill than traditional teaching strategies that focus on memorization and testing.  The idea is also that children can take on much of the responsibility for maintaining the systems, rather than relying on or creating bureaucracies to do so.  We believe you have to leverage the kids themselves, Ms. Jepsen said. Theyre learning machines. As an example, she pointed to the backlight used by the laptop. Although it is designed to last five years, if it fails it can be replaced as simply as batteries are replaced in a flashlight. It is something a child can do, she said.  That philosophy, at the heart of the projects world view, has stirred criticism for its focus on getting equipment to students rather than issues like teacher training and curriculum.  I think its wonderful that the machines can be put in the hands of children and parents, and it will have an impact on their lives if they have access to electricity, Larry Cuban, a Stanford University education professor, said in an interview. However, if part of their rationale is that it will revolutionize education in various countries, I dont think it will happen, and they are naïve and innocent about the reality of formal schooling.  The debate is certain to enter a new phase when the machines go into full-scale production by Taiwan-based Quanta Computer, the worlds second-largest laptop maker. (The manufacturer, unlike the project itself, will make a profit.) Overnight, even though it will not be available to consumers, the laptop could become the best-selling portable computer in the world.  The project now has tentative commitments for three million computers and will begin large-scale manufacturing when it reaches five million with separate commitments from at least one country each in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Based on current negotiations, Mr. Negroponte says he expects that goal to be reached by mid-2007.  It got a significant boost on Nov. 15 when the Inter-American Development Bank signed an agreement to supply both loans and grants to buy the machines.  Several years ago, I thought it was an illusion or a utopian idea, said Juan José Daboub, managing director of the World Bank and an independent economic-development expert. But this is now real and encouraging.  Mr. Negroponte said the manufacturing cost was now below $150 and that it would fall below $100 by the end of 2008.  One factor setting the project apart from earlier efforts to create inexpensive computers for education is the inclusion of a wireless network capability in each machine.  The project leaders say they will employ a variety of methods for connecting to the Internet, depending on local conditions. In some countries, like Libya, satellite downlinks will be used. In others, like Nigeria, the existing cellular data network will provide connections, and in some places specially designed long-range Wi-Fi antennas will extend the wireless Internet to rural areas.
The debate is centered on whether cheap laptops are the best way to improve education in the developing world.