The recent, and growing, buzz about the "$100 Laptop" project has led to increased awareness - and scrutiny -- of the broader trend of trying to develop specially-designed information and communication devices for the poor in developing countries. While the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative -- the formal name of the project led by Nicholas Negroponte of the MIT Media Lab -- is currently the most visible initiative of this sort, many other similar efforts have been launched in the past few years, in a variety of formats (PC, laptop, mobile phone, PDA, etc.) and proposed for use in many sectors, including (among others) education, health, and agriculture. Not surprisingly, education has been a priority focus of many such initiatives (including the "$100 laptop"), given the universality of the needs and the obvious benefits that technology can bring to learning.

All of these initiatives respond, in some sense, to a market failure -- demand clearly exists, yet the supply of affordable, locally appropriate tools, applications and content is inadequate. Even though the market price of basic personal computers has come down dramatically in recent years, they and similar tools are still beyond the reach of most poor families in developing countries. Even where they might be affordable, these computers and similar electronic appliances are often ill-adapted to the specific environmental, infrastructure and use constraints of poor communities in the developing world. The common motivation of the various "information appliances for the poor" initiatives is to develop scalable models of information and communication tools that would meet this demand, within these constraints, at a price point that is broadly affordable by poor families, schools or communities.

infoDev, a partnership of international development agencies housed at the World Bank, and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School are inviting constructive comment and discussion from people with knowledge and experience in the challenges of adapting information and communication technologies to the needs, environments and constraints of developing countries, both in education and other sectors.

The purpose of this exercise is to step back from the current excitement and debate about specific initiatives and tools to ask some more basic questions. The problem with much of the discussion in this area is that much of it operates based on a series of unexamined premises, and that the key issues have been jumbled together. We are seeking to un-pack them. In doing so, we are not presumptuous enough to claim that we will ‘solve’ any of the big questions – but being clear about what they are will help our group decide on an immediate course of action.

In the coming months, we will be sponsoring a series of activities to help the the international donor community, governments, the private sector, academia and civil society better assess various key dimensions of the "information appliances for the poor" challenge, on both the supply and demand sides.

Stay tuned.