Red Hat Adds Muscle to One Laptop Per Child Movement

Red Hat Adds Muscle to One Laptop Per Child Movement

Red Hat (NASDAQ: RHAT), the world’s leading provider of open source to the enterprise, today formally announced its founding corporate membership in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative. The OLPC project aims to create and distribute inexpensive laptop computers to students around the globe for educational purposes, particularly those in developing countries. Red Hat is focused mainly on the software aspects, and plans to drive the development of the operating system for the OLPC machines. The company’s design plans also encompass larger issues of open source community participation, training, support, providing updates, certifications, and integrating additional technologies over time.

Initially started as a research project at MIT Media Lab, and formally announced at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005, the OLPC initiative has grown to include an elite group of contributors standing shoulder to shoulder to bring modern tools for learning to children around the world.

“At Red Hat, we believe that open source technology can change the world, and is still in its infancy. It’s a guiding principle that is embodied in everything we do,” said Matthew Szulik, chairman, president and CEO of Red Hat. “Beyond a founding corporate sponsorship, we’ve put engineering and other strategic resources behind the One Laptop Per Child initiative to add our expertise, global reach and focus to the project. It’s another real-world example of our mission to democratize technology, while helping to make knowledge and education more available for children everywhere.”

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