Press: 200,000 More Laptops for the Ceibal Plan

Published by Pablo Flores , Monday, March 17th, 2008
Translation - Alec McLure

Miguel Brechner, the President of LATU, told "El País" that the government will put out a bid for an additional 200 thousand computers for the Ceibal plan in April. He also observed that these days there are more competitors in the market who offer laptops which are suitable for the program.

Additionally, the freezing problem that affected the computers provided in the Florida department has been resolved. A software problem had shut them down.

"The technical problems which froze the Ceibal laptops have already been resolved. They came from the factory with an error in the software," explained Brechner.

The request for bids had established a requirement for the computers to have a kind of security key which would be activated in case of theft, but the software was accidentally activated on all the machines.

In the next few weeks laptop deliveries will continue in the rest of the schools in Florida, Flores, Durazno, and Colonia (in that order). There are 30,000 laptops to be delivered, and new shipments will arrive in the next few weeks to reach the 100,000 in the original bid.

Meanwhile Nicholas Negroponte, the creator of the OLPC program, announced that he would resign as general manager of OLPC, but will stay on as president of this organization. He has been its main motivator since it was created three years ago.

In a recent Business Week interview, Negroponte said that he would like someone to guide the project. "We shouldn't be in the hardware business, nor in the software business. We should be in the education business.", he stated.

Negroponte doesn't consider himself to be the right person to direct this project and he indicated that he will not be involved in day-to-day management, but rather use his perspective to offer a global vision.

The OLPC board will have a session in Uruguay at the end of the month, coinciding with the Americas Innovation Forum at the Hotel Conrad Punta del Este from March 30 to April 1st - which will be inaugurated with the conference.

En esos días, además, el creador del proyecto de un computador por niño visitará Florida, el primer departamento uruguayo en implementar el Plan Ceibal.