One Laptop per Child Appoints Chuck Kane as President and Chief Operation Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--One Laptop per Child, a non-profit organization focused on providing educational tools to help children in developing countries “learn learning,” announced today the appointment of Charles (“Chuck”) Kane as President and Chief Operating Officer. In this new role, Kane will be responsible for all OLPC operational matters and for negotiating agreements with third parties. OLPC Founder and Chairman Nicholas Negroponte will focus on fundraising and promoting the project to governments worldwide.

“During the past year Chuck has generously helped out on a part-time basis and his counsel has been invaluable. We’re delighted that he can now join us on a full-time basis and apply his extensive experience to moving OLPC forward.”

“Now that global distribution deployment are underway, OLPC needs a leader with strong operational experience to ensure that the organization delivers on its commitments to numerous partners and governments,” said Nicholas Negroponte, Founder and Chairman of One Laptop per Child. “During the past year Chuck has generously helped out on a part-time basis and his counsel has been invaluable. We’re delighted that he can now join us on a full-time basis and apply his extensive experience to moving OLPC forward.”

“From the moment I got involved with OLPC, I’ve been passionate about the mission and impressed by the team’s ability to break through numerous challenges to develop and deliver the XO laptop,” said Chuck Kane, newly appointed President and COO of One Laptop per Child. “I greatly look forward to working with the team and our partners to helping make OLPC even more effective in achieving its objectives.”

Before joining OLPC, Kane held a number of positions in which he oversaw mergers and acquisitions, negotiated deals, restructured organizations and directed financial operations. In 2007, he served as Vice President Finance and Partner of a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) which raised $250 million to acquire business process outsourcing companies. In 2006 as CFO of RSA Security, he managed the M&A process that resulted in the sale of the company to EMC for $2.3 billion. From 2003 to 2006, as CFO and then interim CEO of Aspen Technology, Kane restructured and refinanced the company in a major turnaround story. Other experience includes senior level finance and operations positions at several technology companies including Corechange Software, Informix Software, Stratus Computer and Prime Computer. Kane started his career as a CPA with Deloitte and Touche. Kane is a member of the Board of Directors of Progress Software, Borland Software, Netezza and Egenera.

Kane has a BSS in Accountancy from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in International Finance from Babson College. He is a CPA and Senior Lecturer in International Finance at the Sloan Graduate School of Business at MIT.

About One Laptop per Child

One Laptop per Child (OLPC at http://www.laptop.org) is a non-profit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and others from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. These XO laptops are rugged, open source, and so energy efficient that they can be powered by a child manually. Mesh networking gives many machines Internet access from one connection. The pricing goal is $100.