New Laptop Soul
Nicholas Negroponte knew he would need a lot of help. when the former director of the MIT media lab announced in 2005 the idea of making $100 laptops for millions of children in the poorest nations, his support group consisted of a couple of professors in cardigans. The project was ambitious: This machine was not a knockoff of a Dell or an Apple but a complete rethink, from the motherboard to the escape key.
His solution was to open every aspect of the product's development and design to gearheads around the world who wanted to pitch in. Negroponte eventually negotiated formal agreements with designers and suppliers. But at the start he envisioned a wiki undertaking and set up a sprawling Web site (wiki.laptop.org) with dozens of pages dedicated to the laptop's every detail--its goals and technical specs, downloads of the latest software and problems with the latest prototypes. Wild ideas, practical applications, skin-peeling criticism--it's all part of the process. A loosely connected alliance of staffers, suppliers and volunteers work out the kinks.
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