The OLPC mission misconception
January 3rd, 2007
On a rainy evening on January 17, 2007, Walter Bender, president for the software development at the non-profit One Laptop Per Child association (OLPC), arrives at the MIT Museum in Cambridge around 6:30 p.m. He parks his Peugeot mountain bike against the wall, on the left side of the Museum temporary door.
His yellow helmet in one hand, he climbs the stairs leading to the Soap Box event conference room, balancing his steps to the rhythm of his k-way trousers hiss. The atmosphere is convivial, less than fifty people, men, women and children joined the event, and sit in arc in front of the soapbox. While John Durant, director of the MIT Museum introduces him, Bender pulls two green and white plastic laptops out of his backpack. When he opens them, the two antennas give the laptops a frog silhouette.
Here they stand, on a tiny podium, the famous $100 laptops.
