A new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology was launched by The Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The initiative was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, Lab chairman and co-founder, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005. The project aimed at giving children in developing countries access to knowledge and educational tools. A non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been also created in order to achieve this goal.

There are also some big companies which participate in the "One Laptop Per Child" project. These are Nortel, Google, Advanced Micro Devices, Taiwan's Quanta Computer and News Corp. With the signing of a partnership agreement in Davos between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) on 28 January 2006, The United Nations also gave support to the project.