In this picture taken, 16 January 2008, students work on their One Laptop per Child (OLPC) laptops at Vasti Vidhalaya- a Marathi medium school at Khairat, in Karjat district some 75 kms north of India's financial capital of Mumbai. 22 children from the Khairat school have been gifted the USD 100 laptop weighing 850 gram, as part of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-profit organization's India pilot study. With the help of the OLPC laptop these children though studying in a vernacular language, can write words in English, draw and paint, learn maths (through the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tools), play memory games, chat, and even prepare projects using the internet. The OLPC laptop project financially supported by individuals, businesses and foundations aims at a constructive model of education, where the child is exposed to tools other than their regular syllabus and the pilot study, which was launched last year, is the first of its kind in the country, and if successful, will be expanded to cover three million rural children. The OLPC project mission - a brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte-currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, is to ensure that all school-aged children in the developing world are able to engage effectively with their own personal laptop, networked to the world, so that they, their families and their communities can openly learn and learn about learning. AFP PHOTO/Pal PILLAI (Photo credit should read PAL PILLAI/AFP/Getty Images)
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