no country orders for laptops

by Christopher Blizzard

I keep seeing this meme reported over and over again: that One Laptop per Child has gotten commitments from countries that add up to 4 million laptops.

This is not true.

I want to make this very clear. I work in the One Laptop office every day and I’m generally aware of what’s going on with the various countries. I have talked with the stakeholders inside of the One Laptop organization and can confirm that nothing has been signed, and no country has yet been asked to sign.

This is not to say that we aren’t in discussions with countries – we clearly are. And there’s a huge amount of interest. But if you read Khaled’s words carefully you can see that he clearly says that nothing is signed:

“We have not finalized the deal with the Nigerian government yet, but we are in the process of doing so,” Hassounah told DesktopLinux.com. “The person who announced the Nigerian government’s commitment to buying the laptops (Professor Ernest Ndukwe) is a key member of the Nigerian Task Force working with OLPC on bringing laptops to Nigerian children.”

When we have something signed – and we will – I’m sure you’ll hear about it from us.