UN lends backing to the $100 laptop The United Nations will lend its support to a project which aims to ship inexpensive laptops to children worldwide. Kemal Dervis, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), will sign a memorandum of understanding Saturday with Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child, on the $100 laptop project, at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. The programme aims to ship 1 million units by the end of next year to sell to governments at cost for distribution to school children and teachers. UNDP will work with Negroponte's organisation to deliver 'technology and resources to targeted schools in the least developed countries,' the UN agency said in a statement. The aim is to have governments or donors buy the laptops and give full ownership to the children. Negroponte, who is also chairman of the MIT Media Lab, has said he expects to sell 1 million of them to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and N igeria. The laptop will run on an open-source operating system. Its colour will be lime green, with a yellow hand crank, to make them appealing to children and to fend off thieves. Mercury News / AP, January 26, 2006 [A] UN lends backing to the $100 laptop The United Nations will lend its support to a project which aims to ship inexpensive laptops to children worldwide. Kemal Dervis, head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), will sign a memorandum of understanding Saturday with Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop per Child, on the $100 laptop project, at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. The programme aims to ship 1 million units by the end of next year to sell to governments at cost for distribution to school children and teachers. UNDP will work with Negroponte's organisation to deliver 'technology and resources to targeted schools in the least developed countries,' the UN agency said in a statement. The aim is to have governments or donors buy the laptops and give full ownership to the children. Negroponte, who is also chairman of the MIT Media Lab, has said he expects to sell 1 million of them to Brazil, Thailand, Egypt and N igeria. The laptop will run on an open-source operating system. Its colour will be lime green, with a yellow hand crank, to make them appealing to children and to fend off thieves. http://unu-merit.nl/ictweekly/ref.php?nid=2494 Mercury News / AP , January 26, 2006