OLPC sets target to sell 3 m laptops in India by 2009
“We are in talks with several urban schools and so far have sales of around 1 million units in the pipeline,” said OLPC India president and CEO Satish Jha. Aimed at bridging the digital divide in the country, OLPC is now tapping into the corporate sector to assist in introducing computing to the underprivileged in the country. “We have met several companies so far and many have come back to us with a promise of support,” he said. However, Jha refused to divulge names of the interested companies.
Jha added that the cost of adopting one village will be around Rs 5 lakh. “Even if a few large corporations adopt 10 villages, which means around 400-500 students each, it will be soon be a huge number,” said Jha. OLPC, which does not directly sell the laptops in the market, is also in talks with several state governments to implement the project in their regions. However, the company is yet to finalise a deal with the any state government.
The 1,000 laptops sold by the organisation so far are to six schools in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. While schools in Khairat village in
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