Intel’s Little Laptop That Could Brings Tech to Millions of Children Around the World

Intel’s Little Laptop That Could Brings Tech to Millions of Children Around the World

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Intel has created a low-cost, high-function laptop designed to get beat up, dropped and deliver education to children around the world.

The Intel-powered convertible classmate PC is about the size and weight of two iPads stacked on top of one another with a soft rubber backing and carry handle. The idea was to get computers into young hands to connect them to a larger world and improve the learning experience in global classrooms, explains Wayne Grant, the director of research and planning for Intel’s Education Market Platforms Group.

The PC has a swivel screen, allowing the clamshell laptop to turn into a pseudo-tablet with full touch-screen functionality. It also has a webcam and an accelerometer. The computers are designed for tough conditions. The battery lasts four to eight-and-a-half hours working on a minimal charge. The PC has been drop tested, baked in an oven and frozen in a refrigerator. It may seem like a lot of punishment for a piece of tech, but the tests ensure that the computers can’t break down in the remote areas where they’re being sent. So far, Intel has placed more than 4 million PCs into places like Argentina (1.5 million), Nigeria (150,000) and the Republic of Srpska (10,200).

That’s nearly twice the amount delivered by One Laptop Per Child, perhaps the best known non-profit trying to get low-cost computers into children’s hands. Grant says he admires One Laptop Per Child and its custom-built laptop, but he does see some clear-cut differences between the program and Intel’s efforts. Intel has created a software suite of education tools to help teachers in the classroom. This includes cloud-based programs that allow teachers to send out quick questions and quizzes to their students and collect data from work projects. “Without software, this isn’t much more than a friendly hand-warmer,” Grant jokes.

Grant spent 15 years in education, as a math and science teacher at Red Lake District High School, and then as a curriculum designer at Confederation College of Applied Arts & Technology. That influence is clear in the PC. Rather than just parachuting technology and letting kids figure it out, Intel augments that free time with a software suite and training from Intel employees. “Just because you make it available in a classroom doesn’t mean a teacher know what to do with it,” Grant says. Employees head to classrooms across the world and help train teachers to get the most out of the hardware and the software.

That kind of training is more of a resource drain than One Laptop Per Child, which purports to be more intuitive. That, combined with the software and touchscreens, means that Intel’s PCs run in the $400 to $500 range. It is significantly more than One Laptop Per Child’s price point.

Interestingly, Intel doesn’t actually sell the classmate PCs, but instead licenses them out to local ODMs (original design manufacturers) that make and sell the Intel-branded computers. Because of this, the price can skew high or low. However, this also means that Intel helps create jobs by outsourcing manufacturing to the same communities that are getting the technology.

So is the classmate PC a win-win for everyone? Are technology and education the best resources we can give underserved communities? Sound off in the comments.