Intel Backs Out of One Laptop Per Child Project
January 4, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Intel Corporation has officially ended its relationship with the nonprofit project, One Laptop Per Child, after months of feuding with its founder, Nicholas Negroponte, reports The Wall Street Journal.
One Laptop Per Child, a project that sells low-cost laptops intended to reach the world’s neediest schoolchildren, has struggled since its creation three years ago due to increasing competition and a lack of large orders from governments.
Intel’s spokesman, Chuck Mulloy, said that problems arose when Mr. Negroponte demanded that Intel stop selling its own-designed laptop, known as the Classmate, to developing countries that One Laptop wants to serve.
Walter Bender, executive director of One Laptop, told
The New York Times that Intel was uncooperative and undermined the nonprofit organization’s work. He told The Times, “I think that as an organization, Intel is about competition; they are not about learning.”
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