The Indian government wasn t interested so OLPC partners with Reliance ADA Group to bring computers to India s primary school kids Students at the Marathi medium school at Khairat have been selected to take part in an India pilot study launched by One Laptop per Child OLPC PAL PILLAI AFP Getty Images by Nandini Lakshman Nicholas Negroponte has found it tough going in India For years as the head of MIT s Media Lab the famed computer scientist promoted radical ways to use technology to transform society His best-known idea is the One Laptop per Child OLPC program BusinessWeek 6 5 08 a plan to make a simple 100 laptop that would create a digitally literate generation in the hardscrabble classrooms of emerging-market nations The laptop now dubbed the XO is finally being mass-produced in China In 2001 the computer scientist came to India to promote the Media Lab but failed to impress New Delhi Negroponte clearly fell off the India map when then-Information Technology Minister Arun Shourie dismissed his efforts as quot pedagogically suspect quot and wanted more accountability When Negroponte s nonprofit One Laptop per Child foundation approached the Indian government in 2006 his project was again rebuffed by India s then-Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee BusinessWeek com 8 16 06 Two years later Negroponte is back to open a new office in New Delhi and launch the OLPC program in India on Aug 4 Despite all the rebuffs Negroponte s urge to sell in India is stronger than ever quot India is the largest market for us and I had to be here quot he says More important Negroponte has a new partner mdash one of India s politically influential private-sector conglomerates The Digital Bridge Foundation part of Reliance ADA Group owned by Indian billionaire Anil Ambani is providing the technology backbone and logistics for the installation of OLPC s white and green XO laptops in primary schools OLPC has started out by giving its laptops free to Reliance which has been in charge of distributing them and building awareness in India Now though the time has come for both the U S non-profit and Reliance to accelerate the rollout To do that Reliance has set up the Digital Bridge Foundation a charitable arm that will work with OLPC and pursue other proposals As they work together the two sides have had their share of challenges For instance while Reliance officials characterize their relationship with OLPC as a partnership executives from the U S non-profit describe it slightly differently quot Reliance created the Digital Bridge Foundation to help but we have no formal partnership with Reliance quot says Negroponte The rhetorical tweak could be useful in India State governments and development organizations in the country have tended to be skeptical about being openly associated with the private sector quot We believe that the industry does not have a similar passion like us and their intentions often tend to have a commercial tinge quot says Sai Prakash head of Erin Foundation a non-government organization based in Bangalore that does work promoting IT in the Indian countryside Whether you call it a partnership an alliance or something else the relationship between OLPC and the Reliance-backed foundation is a complete change Seeking Inroads into India This new partnership is a complete change from OLPC s global moves which generally involve exclusive deals with governments in various countries as the best way to reach students Today Negroponte and his band of evangelists are ready to try anything to sell their laptops quickly quot Scale quot says Negroponte quot is key to OLPC quot So unlike other countries like Peru and Uruguay for instance where the XO laptops are completely funded by the federal state the Indian blend will include corporations industry bodies and state governments Recruiting Reliance and other allies may overcome New Delhi s lingering reluctance toward technology spending in primary education