Nicholas Negroponte is the founding director of the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  And he is chairman of a nonprofit organization aiming to provide inexpensive computers to children in the developing world. But perhaps more than anything else, Nicholas Negroponte is a determined optimist.  VOA's Paul Sisco has more.

Nicholas Negroponte has a grand vision for the future. Give all the world's children a laptop computer, Internet access, and in 10 years. "Poverty will be eliminated, and there will be world peace," he adds.

Negroponte chairs a nonprofit organization called One Laptop Per Child. It aims to educate the world's poorest children with these durable low-cost, energy efficient laptops.

Fortune Magazine's David Kirkpatrick says, "It really is the first time that anybody has built a machine specifically for poor kids in quantity."

Production costs of the so called $100 laptops are actually around $188.  And for two weeks in November, North Americans will be able to buy two for about $400. The plan announced earlier this week is called "Give One Get One." For every laptop bought, one is shipped to a child in the developing world.  The buyer gets a $200 tax deduction. The computers can be hand cranked and charged with solar power. That led one boy in a focus group to say they even prevent global warming. 

(Children)
'You can use it for your homework.'
'You can do kid stuff on it.'
'And I can pick it up. See??'

Nicholas Negroponte added, "If you think of it as a laptop, it can be viewed as a luxury.  If you think of it as education, it's not a luxury."

Several governments have shown interest in the computers. Negroponte says he believes the new marketing effort will prompt those governments to buy the computers.