Red Hat has formally announced its founding corporate membership in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative. The OLPC project aims to create and distribute inexpensive laptop computers to students around the globe for educational purposes, particularly those in developing countries. Red Hat is focused mainly on the software aspects, and [plans to] drive the development of the operating system for the OLPC machines. The company's design plans also encompass larger issues of open source community participation, training, support, providing updates, certifications, and integrating additional technologies over time.

Initially started as a research project at MIT Media Lab, and formally announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005, the OLPC initiative has grown to include an elite group of contributors standing shoulder to shoulder to bring modern tools for learning to children around the world.

"At Red Hat, we believe that open source technology can change the world, and is still in its infancy. It's a guiding principle that is embodied in everything we do," said Matthew Szulik, chairman, president and CEO of Red Hat. "Beyond a founding corporate sponsorship, we've put engineering and other strategic resources behind the One Laptop per Child initiative to add our expertise, global reach and focus to the project. It's another real-world example of our mission to democratize technology, while helping to make knowledge and education more available for children everywhere."

Speaking on the OLPC initiative Javed Tapia President Red Hat India adds, "India has the largest population in the world below the age of 25 and the OLPC initiative is especially relevant for India if we have to take Information Technology to the next generation of Indians. Our India development center continuously works towards evolving solutions that meet our country's needs by addressing the cost issue while intelligently leveraging the unique wealth that India possesses i.e. its army of talented programmers." Further adding on the localization initiatives, Javed expressed that Open Source Software offers India a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a national IT infrastructure that can propel the country to prosperity and a future of innovation. He added that the global support for the OLPC initiative is further strengthened in India by the local language computing environment that Red Hat is fuelling through its localization roadmap.

"Red Hat's experience and core strategy of open collaboration made them a natural fit with this project," said Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman and Co-founder of MIT's Media Lab. "Open source and Linux will both reach and engage people in the rest of the world."

Red Hat first embraced the OLPC project when Nicholas Negroponte, the chairman and co-founder of MIT's Media Laboratory, expressed an interest in making the laptop based on open source software. Using an open source software platform is critical to the success of the OLPC initiative, to both encourage local participation in the software projects, and to to allow students to customize and expand their machines as their learning needs and skills grow.

According to the MIT Media Lab, the proposed $100 machine will be a "ruggedized" laptop, approximately the size of a textbook, featuring a Linux-based system with a dual-mode display. The laptops will have wireless broadband that allows them to work as a mesh network - each laptop will be able to "talk" to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will also incorporate innovative power structures - including wind-up - and will be able to do most everything that "fat" clients can do, except store huge amounts of data.

Nicholas Negroponte will discuss the OLPC initiative and Red Hat's role at this year's Red Hat Summit on June 2 in Nashville, Tenn