The New York Linux User Group, graciously hosted at Google’s Manhattan offices, held a presentation by Chris Blizzard on the One Laptop Per Child project. He brought along two demo units and I had an opportunity to see it in action.

The principles underlying the project are fairly well known and documented, and I agree with them. The hardware was fairly nice looking, and are quite capable. All in all I can’t wait to see these rolled out to the world. Having the youth of developing countries gain access to equalizing resources such as the Internet will have a dramatic effect on future generations, bringing people a new ability to shed ignorance and embrace widespread communications with the wider world.

If you’re interested in the OLPC, check out http://www.laptop.org