Is one laptop per child the only answer?

A good many people will have heard of One Laptop Per Child project. The aim,  you may recall, is  to create a cheap — about $100 —  strong and sturdy laptop for use in the developing world. The man behind this. Nicholas Negroponte,  believes that if children can be given a laptop that they can take home with them, they will be better equippeid to deal with technology and to put to use for learning other things.   

For some time a former research scientist Quintin Stafford-Fraser & John Naughton (see blogroll right) have been engaged in developing an altogether different idea. Thir aim is to have a single PC, running the  Linux operating system (Ubuntu), supporting numerous simultaneous users. The intention of the project, called Ndiyo, (the word means “yes” in the Swahili),  is to enable  five to ten users link up to a single PC with very low energy consumption at any one time.

There is an extremely good introduction to the project, and the two men behind it, in today’s ZDnet.co.uk