The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) will offer $100 laptop in joint venture with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation. OLPC’s India plans will promote e-learning among poor and lower income groups across the country and Reliance Communications will provide Internet services, network and logistics. Reliance expects state governments and NGOs to come forward to make $ 100 laptop a reality in India.

OLPC was very happy with the results of a test project at a rural school in a remote village Khairat in Maharashtra. OLPC foundation provided laptops for education and offered training to teachers. The results of the initiative are encouraging and the foundation is happy to extend the program to cover 25,000 towns, and 6 lakh villages across India by 2008. OLPC has provided over 5 million laptops all over world under its Global initiative.

All the laptops will be connected via network to the school server and students will be able to interact and will be under shared learning environment. Many applications on the laptops will not work once it is out of the school network.

The price for the laptop, however, will not be $ 100 as the initiative says. Every student will be offered a water proof and robust laptop which will be 45-degrees shock-proof. The cost is expected to stay between $180 and $220. OLPC foundation will offer laptops with longer battery life. School children will be able to access their various educational applications in their local languages. The laptop will give them an ability to collaborate with each other and connect to the Internet using RCom services.

Official Statements

Tina Ambani, ADAG Group Chairman Anil Ambani's wife said, "India's economy is growing at a rapid pace. We need to impart quality education to children. The education system has to be more student-friendly. OLPC programme would be application-oriented and not syllabus-oriented."

Carla Gomez Monroy, learning consultant of OLPC, and a part of the pilot, said, "Children lack opportunity, and not capability. Children at Khairat school, who have never even seen a laptop before, are showing easiness and receptiveness while learning on laptops. It has also resulted in reduction in the number of children absentees."