| Notes |
conception of the $100 laptop
In early 2005, drawing from his previous success with distributing laptops to children in developing nations, Negroponte conceived the initial idea of the $100 laptop. He presented the idea at the World Economic Forum where it was extremely well received. John Markoff of the The New York Times called Negroponte the "Johnny Appleseed of the digital era."
Negroponte gained a lot of momentum as his idea was quickly backed by large corporate partners such as AMD, News Corp., Google, Red Hat, Quanta Computers, and Nortel. Additionally, by the end of the year, Negroponte had spoken to over 50 countries and already had several early adopters. These include President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria who committed to one million units. |