India said it will sell a US$20 (S$30) laptop developed domestically by scientists at the Vellore Institute of Technology.

Backed by the Indian government, the Sakshat laptop is the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child charity initiative launched by computer scientist Nicholas Negroponte. Its original target price was US$10

A representative of the group said: "At this stage, the price is working out to be US$20, but with mass production it is bound to come down."

The device is intended to have a 2GB RAM capacity and wireless connectivity.

For now, however, the project has not yet scored a commercial partner and there are many experts who wonder if a US$20 computer is achievable, however many corners are cut and however big the market.

The Sakshat is planned to boost distance learning so as to allow India to meet its vast educational requirements: It has a huge, largely-poor population, of which over 550 million are younger than 25.

The Sakshat will also fit into a grand plan to boost e-learning at over 18,000 colleges and 400 universities.

A prototype will go on show at a National Mission on Education launch in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.

Last week, secretary of secondary and higher education R.P. Agrawal made the brave guess that the first Sakshats should become commercially available within six months.

If it achieves its objectives, the project will overshadow the so-called "US$100 laptop", designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and known as the Children's Machine, or XO.

It will also dethrone the Eee PC, by Taiwan's Asus. The Eee PC introduced the scaled-down laptop (dubbed the netbook), which has no hard drive and retails for US$200 to US$400.

By: DocMemory
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