We have to make machines understand what they're doing, or they won't be able to come back and say, 'Why did you do that?'

It's hard to propose a $100 laptop for a world community of kids and then not say in the same breath that you're going to depend on the community to make software for it.

We've been working now with computers and education for 30 years, computers in developing countries for 20 years, and trying to make low-cost machines for 10 years. This is not a sudden turn down the road.

The laptop brings back a more seamless kind of learning.

When you meet a head of state, and you say, 'What is your most precious natural resource?' they will not say children at first, and then when you say, 'children,' they will pretty quickly agree with you.

Learning by doing, peer-to-peer teaching, and computer simulation are all part of the same equation.