Give me rice, but give me a laptop too

[Also available from the BBC News website – 10 years of shiny goodness!]

Update: there’s a discussion going on over on Dvorak’s blog.

One of the best things about being on the World Service radio programme Digital Planet each week is that I get to hear about interesting technologies from many different countries and explore the impact that computers and the internet are having in people’s daily lives.

We often follow stories as they develop, coming back to them from time to time to see if early promises have been kept or bold predictions have been borne out.

It’s been nearly three years since Nicholas Negroponte came onto the show to talk about his plan for a low-cost laptop for the developing world. He wanted to build it for under $100 and sell millions to governments who would then give them away to schoolchildren.

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