Preliminary Interest
The OLPC project began with lots of interest. At the UN summit in Tunis in 2005, [UN Secretary General Kofi Annan][un_debut] praised the OLPC laptops:
Children will be able to learn by doing, not just through instruction - they will be able to open up new fronts for their education, particularly peer-to-peer learning.
Later in 2005, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo described the initiative as "a great idea". Negropronte describes the project as an education project, not a laptop project, and Obasanjo agrees:
This is not just one laptop for a child, it is for education, communication and for children to develop initiative and learn.
By the end of 2005, OLPC had already gained attention, and had confirmed that Brazil, China, Egypt, South Africa and Thailand had all put plans in place to distribute OLPC laptops. In the US, Massachusetts had also been in negotiations to bring the laptops into its public schools as well.