It's a pretty incredible deal. A laptop that can potentially cost Rs. 5000 to produce.
Two young student-innovators from the Techno School in Bhubaneswar, Orissa have spent 10 months developing what they call the i-Webleaf laptop.
"You will get a 320 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, LAN, 2 USB ports, printer port, and a VGA port for a projector. So you will get everything on this laptop," explains one of the innovators, Chandrasekhar Panda. It also features a 10.2-inch LCD screen and a web camera. To keep the costs low they have also designed the processor for this laptop in their college lab. They call it DXA 16 and claim that it is as fast as the Intel Atom processor.
Along with his partner, Saswat Swain, Mr. Panda hopes that the government can help find the funding to mass produce more of these machines, so that they can be used in schools all over the state.
"In case you are providing a laptop for Rs. 5000, each and every school can get 5 to 10 pieces of laptop easily. It will naturally help them to improve their education standard," says Mr Swain.
They have also designed a data card for Internet connectivity that costs Rs. 1300. Similar data cards from major telecom vendors cost more than Rs. 2000.
The two innovators are desperate to find financiers who can help mass-produce their laptop. They have approached the Orissa government to help them with their venture and are waiting for the government's response.
