Having failed to achieve the ambitious target it had set for itself during its formation in 2005, OLPC seems to have embarked upon a corporate restructuring strategy to reenergize its famous one-laptop-per-child concept.
According to Satish Jha, President and CEO of the recently formed OLPC India, the Boston-based foundation OLPC has set up region-focused operations in various parts of the world to give an impetus to the proliferation of the concept under an "organized format."
Already OLPC has been divided into about 4 broad divisions, with a CEO in each responsible for crafting and implement ambitious growth strategies in their respective regions. These are OLPC Europe, OLPC China, OLPC India, and OLPC Ibero-America and The Caribbean.
OLPC Europe is headed by maverick Belgian entrepreneur Walter De Brouwer -- as President and CEO -- who is most known for forming the European company Starlab, the first private blue sky research laboratory. OLPC's website says that OLPC Europe will function with the cooperation of Foundation Roi Baudouin, a NGO that assists in funding and setting up of investment syndicates for least developed countries, newly industrialized countries and failed states. This division also has Matt Keller of the World Food Program as a Director with the responsibility of introducing and distributing the XO laptops in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
Similarly OLPC China, headed by Anthony Wong -- the ex-honcho of China Telecom -- is charged with promoting OLPC's mission in China and South East Asia. And Satish Jha has taken up the responsibility of XO's penetration in India, coupled with a few other regions in Asia that are outside the domain of OLPC China.
OLPC Ibero-America and The Caribbean -- headed by Rodrigo Arboleda --, as the name suggests, will look after all the Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas, Brazil, and the Caribbean region, while the whole of North America would be under OLPC's president and COO, Charles Kane. Additionally, according to Jha, OLPC has also roped in Jorge Castañeda, the "very powerful and influential" ex-foreign minister of Mexico to promote XO in the newly industrialized federal constitutional republic.
In each of these regions according to Jha, OLPC will work with partner organizations if required to achieve its objectives. "OLPC still believes that there is a huge potential for XO globally and for it to be able to tap that potential, OLPC had to create a corporate format."
But that doesn't mean that these divisions and the OLPC Foundation will function as a company. "We are not hardcore businessmen," says Jha. "We are evangelists; we are organizers. We will act as managers to oversee the entire distribution framework of the concept while leaving the implementation and many other related functions to partners who are experts in their domains."
Ever since its launch, with a brazenly ambitious target of providing 100 million laptops by 2008 to the children of all the developing countries -- and thereby changing the face of third world education systems from a paper/slate-based system to a screen-based one -- OLPC has not only failed to achieve its target but has suffered from a multitude of setbacks, some of which almost threatened to send OLPC to the brink.
The setbacks were serious. Starting with doubling of the cost of an XO-from the $100 estimated initially to current cost of around $200, to the challenge of a similar low-budget computer for developing countries launched by Intel, to the exodus of key officials from the project, this project has faced rough times.
However, OLPC's most daunting challenge was -- and continues to be -- its acceptance globally. Although the concept received glowing reviews at the time of launch, few governments around the world were willing to bet on it. In fact, in an admission of OLPC's disappointing track record, Negroponte even told The International Herald Tribune last year that he had "to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written."
Consequently, against the targeted 100 million XOs, OLPC has been able to ship about a million so far.
Nevertheless, it appears Negroponte and his current team remains determined to turn around OLPC's fortunes. "We are doing all that it takes to achieve our goals," says Jha who is stationed at the OLPC headquarters in Boston. "Starting from re-structuring OLPC as an organization, to roping in some of the most influential heads of operations, to even tying with world's top names for manufacture (Qunta of Taiwan to manufacture XO) and distributing XO (with Amazon.com for its Get-One-Give-One program that starts in November) OLPC has adopted a renewed strategy to aggressively promote the concept again globally."
And that thrust will start from China and India, adds Jha. "China and India are our biggest markets," he says.
OLPC India plans to distribute "three million XO laptops in India in the next 12 months" and engage "all the state government, large companies, social foundations, and NGOs to give a new thrust to the OLPC agenda in India."
The cost of the XOs in India is going to be fairly high -- at about $300 each. But that's because the XOs will come with additional features like a camera, USB ports, and even a CDMA modem for wireless Internet connection, says Sumit Chowdhury, of Digital Bridge Foundation, the NGO in India that launched XO on its own about a year back. It is now one of the implementation partners of OLPC India.
According to Chowdhury who is the CIO as well of Reliance Communication, one of the largest telecom service providers in India, the CDMA (USB) modem that The Digital Bridge Foundation has "specially developed" for XO, "not only connects the XO to the Internet wirelessly, but also turns the XO into a phone -- a first in the world so far."
Although Anthony Wong couldn't be reached to comment on OLPC's China plans, Jha said that China's potential is as big as India's, since "just like India, every fourth child in the world is a Chinese."
Even so, the question that still remains (despite the renewed thrust, potentials, et al): can the XO really reach the target that OLPC India ( and OLPC China as well for that matter) has set for themselves? Only time will tell.
Photo by Jarrett Campbell. Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic
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