OStatic

The South Carolina Department of Education and the non-profit Palmetto Project have teamed up to get a laptop in the hands of every elementary school student in South Carolina. Inspired by the vision behind the OLPC Initiative, educators, philanthropists, entrepreneurs and government officials started working together in 2005 to see if they could make this happen.

The OLPC/SC hopes to distribute as many as 50,000 laptops this spring to eligible students. The effort is underwritten and managed by the Palmetto Project, whose mission is to put new and creative ideas to work in South Carolina. While low-performing school districts with limited resources are a special focus for the OLPC/SC, the group is adamant on one point: There are no free laptops. In fact, there are two requirements for children wishing to receive a laptop -- one is merely a token, the other puts the greater meaning of the laptop in perspective.

The situation at One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), the organization behind the $100 laptop, looks like it's going from bad to worse. As we've reported before, key personnel have recently walked out on the project.

At the center of the conflict appears to be the issue of how deep the laptop's open source roots should be.