ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help provide every child in the world access to a modern education, is partnering with the African Union (AU) to deliver laptops to primary school students throughout Africa. This commitment is in line with the African Union’s strong desire to enable a generation of children to think critically, to connect with each other and to the world’s body of knowledge, and to create the conditions for real and substantial economic and social development.
The vision of the African Union is that of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in a global arena. To this end, the AU has committed itself to work with OLPC in developing large-scale laptop projects and to work with OLPC on seeking funding from prospective donors as well as recipient countries for these projects. OLPC and the AU will work together to leverage the advantages of the XO laptop in transforming primary school education and to promote strategies for better access to laptops and connectivity.
"OLPC’s partnership with the AU represents another significant step toward a world in which every child has access to a world-class education, to the world's body of knowledge, and to each other,” said Matt Keller, Vice-President of Global Advocacy of One Laptop per Child. “The AU is dedicating itself not simply to One Laptop per Child, but to a world in which the children become agents of change – making things, teaching each other and their families and affecting the social development of their community.”
Commissioner Jean-Pierre Ezin, the AU Commissioner for Science and Technology, said, “Getting connected laptops filled with dynamic educational content into the hands of children throughout Africa will change the way this generation of children thinks and learns. The AU is eager to realize what could be a profound development as a result of advanced technology in the way learning happens both in and out of school, the way that books are read, and the way that education happens inside a classroom. This is a very ambitious project for which we will have to partner with various people and institutions to mobilize and find the resources required to meet the objective of educational transformation.”
About the One Laptop per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC at http://www.laptop.org) is a nonprofit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and others from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are inexpensive enough to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education.