Do you know Yves Béhar? What a fantastic entrepreneur he is. In 1999 he created fuseproject an industrial design and branding firm and has collected a myriad of awards since.

The design studio works across a wide array of industries as diverse as beauty and fashion to furniture and technology. The studio takes a long-term strategic approach to developing and enhancing brands. Its concepts are visual expressions of brand attributes and the entire customer experience. It aims to help companies innovate through product design and branding.

I came to know of him through one of his project through an article published by wired called “The Laptop Crusade”. He made the news again this week as now the laptops will be powered with a mechanical generator which is actioned by hand pulling a pulley.

The mission: Create a $100 computer for millions of poor kids around the world.

“It’s like there’s this virus of cheap laptops,” Béhar says, laughing. “That’s what happens when you plant an idea.”

Wow! To think that a laptop will only cost 3300 rupees gives me immense joy. I cannot imagine the wealth of knowledge that will open up to the underprivileged, to our school children all over the world.

OLPC, one laptop per child is his vision!

And now thanks to Yves Béhar’s determination OLPC has become a reality.

It’s an education project, not a laptop project.

— Nicholas Negroponte

This is the wiki for the One Laptop per Child association. The mission of this non-profit association is to develop a low-cost laptop—the “$100 Laptop”—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world’s children. Our goal is to provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves.

Why do children in developing nations need laptops? Laptops are both a window and a tool: a window into the world and a tool with which to think. They are a wonderful way for all children to learn learning through independent interaction and exploration.

OLPC espouses five core principles: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and (5) free and open source.