In April 2002, provided 20 children in a small, remote Cambodian village with connected laptops and they easily taught themselves to navigate the internet.

Their first English word? "Google"!

Negroponte is an architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of MIT’s Media Lab. His current achievement, the One Laptop, Per Child (OLPC) Project, began when he sketched out his idea for a $100 laptop for the poor children of the world.

Here is a video of Negroponte presenting the OLPC Project to the 2006 TED Conference in Monterey, California.

He emailed his sketch to his old friend, Hector Ruiz, CEO of chipmaker AMD and six hours later Ruiz replied, "Count us in". Shortly thereafter News Corp. and Google joined as founding members followed by Negroponte’s presentation of the OLPC idea at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The laptop computer, now known as the XO-1 is what scientists would describe as "elegant" in design. Its design and manufacture has taken into account every conceivable situation from extreme temperatures to lack of electricity.

The project originally aimed for a price of $100US but will probably end up closer to $135 and sold to governments to be distributed through those ministries of education willing to adopt the OLPC policy.

The operating system and software will be localized to the languages of the approximate 16 participating countries, with Nigeria being the first country to order 1 million laptops.

Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney submitted a bill to the legislature to deliver OLPCs to all of the children in the state. Bravo!

The XO-1 is low-cost, small, durable and efficient which is certainly a noteworthy accomplishment but that is not the reason for this article.

The Lang Report applauds Nicholas Negroponte and the XO-1 Team for the impact we believe they will have on the world’s children who are the future hope for a better world.

I believe the answer to darkness and ignorance is light, awareness and education and the connecting of the world’s children via the OLPC Project is only the beginning.

But what a marvelous beginning it is!