Step 1: give every kid a laptop. Step 2: learning begins?

As of 2012, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has doled out over two million computers across 42 countries, in places as diverse as the Solomon Islands (300 machines), Haiti (15,000), Mongolia (14,500), and Iraq (9,000). Its most widespread deployment to date (by percentage of population) is in Uruguay, where over 500,000 laptops have been given out to every single elementary school student—nearly one-seventh the population of the entire country.

In Uruguay, the first pilot deployment of Plan Ceibal began in 2007 in the town of Villa Cardal, a town of just over 1,000 people in the southern part of the country. According to a 2011 report from the Inter-American Development Bank, the plan also had "broad political support from the Presidency of the Republic," adding that "all subsequent electoral candidates promised to preserve and continue the plan." The IDB added that the initial investment was $100 million, or 17 percent of the national budget for primary education. The Uruguayan model has drawn plenty of praise from ed-tech scholars and observers. Many point to the fact that all schools now have Internet connectivity, free WiFi exists in at least some public spaces, and Internet access has entered the home—Uruguayan families only pay for the router itself. Of course, it helps that Uruguay is a small country to begin with—98 percent of its 3 million people are literate, living across an area slightly smaller than Washington state.