Learning to Change the World: The Social Impact of One Laptop Per Child

by Charles Kane, Walter Bender, Jody Cornish

There are thousands of social entrepreneurship programs in various stages of planning and implementation at any given time.  For the most part, these programs start out small with the intention of “scaling up” based on trial and error.   One Laptop per Child started out with a very ambitious mission—to provide more information and better education to the world’s poor via an inexpensive laptop.   Almost immediately this organization garnered attention—the ambition, the caliber of people working on the program and the initial success.  This book tells not only the story of this lofty group of pioneers, but also puts the lessons into perspective for future social entrepreneurs—what it means to work in this environment, how to collaborate with educators, organizations, countries, administrators, businesses.  Part narrative history of OLpC, part social entrepreneurship lessons and part futuristic look at attaining the education goals it set out, this book offers a real on the ground look at how this group brought together, business, educators,  technology, non-profits, and entrepreneurs to help bring an education to the world’s underprivileged.

Genres: Education

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 24, 2012

Reviews

[Pedro Reynolds-cuellar · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a long time member of OLPC's project I must say that this book falls short on speaking for practitioners working to make sense of OLPC in the real world. The handful of "case studies" presented here, are not an accurate portrait of the scope of the project, both for its good and bad.
The book fails to engage in self-criticism focusing instead on an incomplete historical reconstruction of the project.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for their accomplishment rather than their writing of this book. I wish OLPC the best of luck in fulfilling their mandate. They have done quite a lot so far, but still have lots to do! Two thumbs up for a job well done to date!

[Bret Legg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Love the concept and find the ideas interesting, but found myself getting bogged down and muddling through all the details.