February 17, 2008, 8:28 PM — Mary Lou Jepsen stirred up a controversy when she left the struggling One Laptop
Per Child nonprofit effort in December to start her own for-profit company,
Pixel Qi, with the goal to create a US$75 laptop using technologies she invented
at OLPC.
Jepsen's departure as CTO prompted critics to accuse her of taking advantage
of OLPC's nonprofit inventions for personal gain, but supporters shot back,
saying it was the right time for her to leave a listing ship. OLPC has been
afflicted by production delays and rising costs over years, with the laptop's
estimated price rising from $100 to $188. It is now beset by waning orders and
competition from commercial vendors like Intel that threaten to sideline the
nonprofit effort.
Jepsen denied the allegations, saying her departure was put in place early
last year, and that she continues to work with OLPC on developing technologies
for future XO laptops, while selling it for a profit to commercial organizations.
Technologies she invented at OLPC include the display
system optimized for low-power operation, which has been implemented in
the XO laptop.
Retaining the OLPC spirit, Jepsen said Pixel Qi is developing inexpensive products
like a power-efficient display that can be used in developing countries. She
chatted with the IDG News Service about the new company, the $75 laptop and
her days at OLPC.
IDGNS: How is Pixel Qi progressing?
Jepsen: Things are going great. Pixel Qi is now a month old. I've done
a lot of startups before, but [Pixel Qi] is a very unusual startup. It's got
products to ship already, so that's unusual. It's getting a lot of attention,
which surprises me, but it is good that people are interested.
IDGNS: Are you working on the $75 laptop right now?
Jepsen: The $75 laptop -- maybe people are interested in it because
it's a catch phrase -- but mostly it's about designing things for the billions
of people that are joining the information age right now. That's what Pixel
Qi strongly believes in.
Right now I'm starting this company ... to get a lot of the technologies in
[OLPC's XO] laptop into other laptops and cell phones as a first priority. Then
working with OLPC to focus on driving that next-generation laptop. But we just
started shipping this generation [of XO laptops], we owe it to ourselves to
see how the children use them ... and before we start in earnest the design
and development cycle to have the feedback from children in different countries.
I'm focused on getting the screens and power management into other people's
small laptops and cell phones right now. I think the [$75 laptop] will happen
pretty soon, but again I'm not really focused on the $75 laptop right now, while
the innovations that I'm working on can go into that.
That mimics what we did at OLPC. We thought a lot about [designing the XO laptop]
before executing on it. It's a lot easier to redesign on paper. [We are] taking
this time and really talking to a lot of who's who in technology about what
[the $75 laptop] should be. But it's certainly possible to go lower price --
if you look, there are $10 CPUs around.
IDGNS: There is a perception that you left OLPC to privatize the technology
and make money out of it.
Jepsen: I arranged it with Nicholas [Negroponte]. My departure has been
well planned and organized with OLPC. It was in place since spring of 2007 and
I was committed to delivering the XO into high volume mass production. But as
somebody that ... invents, develops and gets hardware into mass production,
there wasn't much more for me to do at OLPC after ... that.
On some level, I was responsible for making a laptop ... and, I realized ...
I should keep doing this. So I got access to the ... intellectual property and
patents. Not because I was the inventor, and not even because the inventor has
the really good chance of improving the price and performance of her invention,
but because OLPC is the beneficiary as the licensee.
