Saturday, November 24, 2007

One Laptop Per Child Campaign Extended to Dec. 31; $$ Donated So Far May Already Pay for 50,000+ Laptops for Kids Overseas.

A One Laptop Per Child [OLPC] press release HERE announces that their “Give one, Get One” [GOGO] funding campaign for PC donations is being extended until December 31, roughly three times the length of the initial planned campaign period.

[My prior posting on GOGO is HERE; that posting discloses that I am a GOGO donor].

One take on this extension is that like an “extended sales period” ad one might see in the newspaper, this could signal that the GOGO campaign is falling short of expectations.

However, the press release suggests otherwise, indicating that donations of "$2 million per day" have been received. As the release also references the first "10 days" this would suggest total donations during that period of $20 Million.

At an assumed cost per PC of $200, $20M. in donations during the first 10 days would provide funding for 100,000 laptops; 50,000 laptops for donors and 50,000 laptops to be sent overseas. (My guess is that if $20M. is accurate more than 50,000 laptops will go overseas as some larger donors likely opted to NOT keep all of their “donor” laptops and to send them overseas instead).

Even If donations during the remaining two thirds+ of the campaign only equal what was donated during the first one third, that would still mean sufficient funding for 200,000 laptops, with at least 100,000 of those laptops going overseas. (These figures would be higher of course if donations are closer to the pace of the first ten days).

While I have seen no public information on GOGO goals, these hefty response levels suggest there is a very good chance that OLPC will look carefully at continuing and expanding this method of funding the cost of laptops to create incentives for more overseas governments to purchase laptops to help their children.

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