How to change the world.

Yesterday, Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab presented his visionary $100 Laptop to the United Nations, just ten months after he announced the initiative.

The basic concept is to make laptops as available and ubiquitous to schoolchildren in developing nations as a No. 2 pencil. At a cost of approximately $110 each, they'll be sold to goverments in quantities of at least a million (payable over five years) starting late next year, provided they are distributed through schools to children - who get to keep them. The rugged, low-power color laptops will run Linux and open source development tools on a 500MHz AMD processor with WiFi, USB and 1GB of flash memory. And they can be rapidly recharged with a hand crank.

Wired has a fascinating interview with Negroponte about the One Laptop Per Child initiative, while News.com offers a short overview.