The Verge’s Version History Examines Why OLPC’s $100 Laptop Never Stood a Chance

The Verge reported that OLPC began with a large, exciting and inspiring idea: giving every child in the world access to a computer. For a group of thinkers and executives in Silicon Valley, the article said, it felt like a way to fix everything. But the One Laptop Per Child initiative and the XO-1 laptop, which was designed to be given away, were both more complicated than anyone expected.

In the episode, Robertson and Imel debate whether the OLPC XO-1 was innovative hardware or just a bad idea, The Verge said. The discussion also tries to determine why OLPC did not work, whether there is anything to learn from the XO-1’s innovative design, and whether this kind of computer giveaway could ever succeed. The Verge’s article presents these questions as the episode’s agenda; it does not state the conclusions the participants reach.

The episode arrives halfway through the fifth season of Version History. The Verge said the season has been touring educational technology icons in schools. Previous episodes have featured the lead game designer of Oregon Trail and The Verge’s Nilay Patel discussing his TI-82 graphing calculator. Verge subscribers can access Version History and all the site’s other podcasts without ads through their account settings, according to the article.

The Verge also pointed readers to additional material on OLPC’s history. They include The Verge’s own article “OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong”; a New York Times article, “Taking the Pulse of Technology at Davos”; a Gizmodo article, “OLPC Origins: US and Taiwan’s Hardware Lovechild”; and Berkeley School of Information’s page for Morgan Ames’ The Charisma Machine: A Deep Dive into One Laptop per Child. The Verge’s article frames the XO-1 and the broader initiative as more complicated than expected, leaving the podcast to assess both the machine and the idea behind it.