Corruption will certainly redistribute resources quickly, but it will not do so in a way that satisfies the mission of “an overall rise in educational outcomes in the countries where the OLPC is used.” Corruption (and theft) exacerbates income inequality by exploiting and reinforcing existing power structures. And corruption is a very real issue in the countries they expect to help. Transparency International has bestowed Nigeria with the dubious distinction of being the 3rd most corrupt country on earth (you’ve probably seen emails from their many princes).

Instead of creating a tiered pricing scheme that incentivizes poor Nigerians to sell their laptops for double or triple the local price, perhaps OLPC should flood the developed world markets with $300 laptops. The profits that they generate could help lay create the educational institutions that are needed to make the project a success in the developing world.

Introducing the laptops in the first world would also generate immediate interest from developers. With a proliferation of open source software and an easier physical environment for testing the hardware, the laptops would be more robust. In many of the target countries, these governments may only give these relatively expensive laptops one chance (if that). If they fail, it may be decades before we have another opportunity to narrow the digital divide.

While Satatic doesn’t have the latest prices, its $140, not $100 dollar laptops, they did do a very interesting comparison of $100 for different countries targeted by OLPC. Using per capita GDP, Statastic, made this handy-dandy chart to show how……