María Antonieta Guillén announced Wednesday that Honduras was launching its "one computer per child" program with a $3 million contribution from the government of Taiwan. This was one of the few campaign promises Porfirio Lobo Sosa made in 2009, that he would start such a program.
The article in La Tribuna says that Taiwan will donate $3 million to purchase the first 8000 computers. In addition, Guillén announced the government had obtained a loan from the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) for a further $38.26 million dollars to purchase more educational computers.
The picture that accompanies the article shows Maria Antonieta Gullén holding a XO laptop, produced by the One Laptop Per Child foundation. This would suggest that Honduras will be purchasing XO laptops, a laptop computer designed for use in the third world for educational purposes. These would be ideal for deployment in Honduras. They are designed for use in both with and without connection to the internet, have simple off-the-grid rechargers, and abundant educational software. Both Guatemala and Nicaragua have purchased and deployed thousands of these computers.
Only something doesn't add up. The XO laptop costs $199, but if $3 million buys, as the article suggests, 8000 computers, that yields a unit price of $375 per computer. At the actual cost, the original $3 million investment would buy 15075 XO laptops, not the 8000 computers the article specifies. Either some of these funds aren't being used to purchase computers, or Taiwan is getting a large order for cheap Windows computers without educational software.Any source
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