One Laptop Per Child non-profit organization started today, November  12, its new program called “Give 1 , Get 1.” 

The program is initiated in North America and $399 can get one XO laptop for you and one XO laptop for a child in a developing nation.

OLPC is at a very important milestone with this project, since the expected amount of  $ 100 per laptop could not be reached yet, and the current cost of the laptop is $180, but Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the OLPC , seems very optimistic . He hopes that the Give one, Get one program will be the kick-off for many green laptop orders .  "It is like an avalanche," he told CNN. "Not much snow needs to slide before a huge avalanche is created. We hope Give One Get One will be like the first pieces of snow."

The laptops will go on sale for two weeks through the xogiving.org website. The customers will receive their laptops either late 2007 or during the first quarter of 2008.

The "100$ notebook" or OLPC XO-1 is produced by Quanta Computers, who has a 33% market share of laptops world-wide. It contains an AMD LX-Geode CPU at 700 MHz and 256 MB of RAM. There is no hard disk, but a 1 GB flash memory. A dual-mode SVGA LCD screen (monochrome and color mode) helps saving power. It has a built-in wireless network interface and color camera. The XO has no moving parts, can be powered by solar, foot-pump or pull-string powered chargers and is housed in a waterproof case.

In July  OLPC announced they have succeeded yet to get the 3 million orders for OLPC that were needed to get production started and the OLPC is ready for mass production. OLPC said there are at least seven countries (Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand, and Uruguay) that have expressed interest in purchasing these laptops.

G1G1 program is considered to be the link between a child in North America and a child in a developing country and Nicholas Negroponte explained: "For that child to be using the same laptop as a kid in Africa is especially meaningful."
In Nicholas Negroponte’s vision the investment in education is at the root of eliminating poverty and the laptops could bring new opportunities to develop children’s creativity.

Could these laptops be a solution to the developing world’s problems?