A laptop for every schoolchild

Here is the email my friend and business partner Marco Antonio Zúñiga is circulating

Let’s build a different Chile NOW ….

Argentina is setting us an example, even without having the resources (see the end of this email for the Argentine case).

In Chile it is only a matter of will.

IN CHILE IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF WILL.

“Campaign:”
A LAPTOP FOR EVERY CHILEAN CHILD IN SUBSIDIZED OR MUNICIPAL SCHOOLS.

Background:

Any Chilean can look up, on the Ministry of Education’s site, the value of the subsidies for subsidized or municipal schools.

http://www.comunidadescolar.cl/ComunidadEscolar/documentacion/Subvencion/valor_subvenciones_FEBRERO_2005.pdf

The average monthly school subsidy is approximately CLP 22,000 to 23,000 in primary education and CLP 27,000 in secondary education.

US$ 100 is approximately 2.5 “months” of the subsidy.

Proposal:

Let’s raise the annual subsidy by “JUST” 22% (a little more than two months), JUST ONCE … And give a computer to every schoolchild.

We don’t quite know what to do with the copper surplus today?
Let’s take the chance to invest in our children and teenagers.

Let’s stop holding 634,275 meetings to talk about the subject, and writing and reading 10,435 studies that say the problem lies in “Education” and the “Digital Divide”.

Let’s do something NOW. We have the resources and we can. It is only a problem of will.

It can be done … It can be done … At the very least, let’s get our country to consider the possibility.
Let’s at least ask ourselves the question once.

Let’s dream the future.

A miserable US$ 100 per child, once, can make the difference for our future as a country and for our children.

Regards to all …

Marco Antonio Zuniga

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Argentina will buy 500,000 hundred-dollar laptops

The Minister of Education, Daniel Filmus, announced that Argentina has signed up for a program organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to buy close to 500,000 laptop computers at
less than 100 dollars, which will go to schools.

In a radio interview, Filmus said that “they are building laptops for 100 dollars. The idea is to get to a cost of 50 dollars. The
laptops will be sold only to governments”.

http://www.weblog.com.ar/001303.html

About the US$100 laptop program
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/

NOTE: Fernando Flores had already raised the subject in his post: “My position on the Mi Primer PC program”.

I think Marco’s contribution is that he puts numbers on it and shows us that this initiative is feasible.