Company Joins Leading Corporations and MIT Media Lab to Transform
Global Education
MIAMI, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Brightstar, a leading logistics and supply
chain management company for the wireless industry, announced today it has
joined a select group of leading global businesses and the MIT Media Lab in
the "One Laptop Per Child" not-for-profit initiative.
One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, is an organization dedicated to enhancing
worldwide primary and secondary education through the implementation and
delivery of a $100 laptop. The organization seeks to make extremely low cost
laptop computers that can be manufactured and distributed to literally every
child in the world.
Brightstar Corp. has joined other corporate collaborators in this project,
each of whom have been selected to provide support in their area of expertise
in the development and distribution of this extremely low-cost technology
tool. Brightstar, a leader in wireless distribution and supply chain
management, will provide logistics and supply chain expertise.
Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, said,
"Brightstar, known for innovation in the wireless technology industry, joins
the MIT Media Lab to change the face of education across the globe."
Negroponte continued, "This selected group of organizations has shown
their commitment and leadership in closing the digital divide in emerging
countries, focusing on providing access to life-altering technology and
information to children across the globe."
"This program is critical to improving education globally," said R.
Marcelo Claure, CEO and president of Brightstar. "We are pleased to be able
to participate in such a revolutionary initiative and believe it will
literally transform the way that people learn and access information."
The OLPC initiative is targeting some of the poorest children in the world
in nations such as Brazil, China, Thailand, Egypt and India. The group is in
discussions with the Brazilian government to be a manufacturing center for the
$100 laptop.
Claure added, "Brightstar's customers and employees live and work in many
of the targeted markets, allowing us to see firsthand the positive effects and
give back to the communities that we serve today."
The $100 laptop is envisioned as a Linux-based, full color, full screen
laptop enabled with both WiFi and cellular technology and produced to be able
to handle a rugged, child's environment. The laptop project, through OLPC, is
headed by an elite team of scientific, educational theorists with backgrounds
in both academia and industry. They include:
-- Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, a
recognized authority on information technology and author of Being
Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages;
-- Seymour Papert, professor emeritus at the MIT Media Lab, who is an
early pioneer of artificial intelligence and one of the world's
leading theorists on child learning;
-- Alan Kay, creator of the Smalltalk language and credited as the
"father of personal computing," his pioneering work in computers has
often been influenced by his interest in children and education;
-- Joseph Jacobson, a physicist and professor at the MIT Media Lab, as
well as inventor of low cost "electronic ink" displays which is one of
the display technologies being considered for the $100 laptop;
-- Mary Lou Jepsen, a leader in display technology and former head of
technology in Intel's display division;
-- V. Michael Bove, Jr., a principal research scientist at the MIT Media
Lab, who developed groundbreaking research in video compression
-- Mitchel Resnick, professor of learning research at the MIT Media Lab
and co-founder of the worldwide network of Computer Clubhouses for
children; and
-- Ted Selker, MIT Media Lab professor and inventor of numerous patents
for products ranging from notebook computers to operating systems.
The group and its corporate partners are targeting late 2006 for the first
distribution of $100 laptops. For more information about the project, visit
http://laptop.media.mit.edu .
About One Laptop Per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a Delaware-based, non-profit organization
created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and
distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in
the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. The laptops will
be provided to governments at cost and issued to children by schools on a
basis of one laptop per child. These machines will be rugged, Linux-based,
and so energy efficient that hand-cranking alone will generate sufficient
power for operation. Mesh networking will give many machines Internet access
from one connection. The pricing goal is to start at $100 and then steadily
decrease.
OLPC is based on "constructionist" theories of learning pioneered by
Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in
Nicholas Negroponte's Being Digital. The founding corporate members are
Google, News Corp, AMD, Red Hat, and Brightstar. All three individuals and
five companies are active participants in OLPC.
About the MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Laboratory is an international leader in the development of
innovative digital media and information technologies, and has pioneered a
uniquely flexible, non-hierarchical organization, designed to encourage
unconventional and counter-intuitive thinking. Housed in an award-winning
I.M. Pei building, the Media Lab is located on the MIT campus in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Always a hotbed of innovative artistic expression, the Media
Lab is increasing technologies and concepts that foster creativity-empowering
people of all ages, from all walks of life, in all societies, to design and
invent new possibilities for them and the communities around them.
About Brightstar
Brightstar Corp. is a leading distributor and provider of value added
supply chain services to the wireless telecom industry, and also designs and
manufacturers products under licensing agreements with leading manufacturers.
Headquartered in Miami, FL, Brightstar has operations in Argentina, Australia,
Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican
Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru,
Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, the U.S. and Venezuela. The company
serves over 160 network operators and 15,000 resellers, retailers and agents
around the world and also represents many of the world's leading wireless
manufacturers. During the year ending 2004, Brightstar's revenues exceeded
$1.7 billion. For more information, visit http://www.brightstarcorp.com .
SOURCE Brightstar Corp.
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Related links:
http://www.brightstarcorp.com
http://laptop.media.mit.edu
CONTACT:
Sally Lange of Brightstar, +1-847-573-2616,
sally.lange@us.brightstarcorp.com
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