Changing the world is hard, risky work. The history of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and chief visionary Nicholas Negroponte is instructive. The tentacles of the story run deep and can be abstruse. There's the conflict between change-the-world philanthropy and don't-threaten-my bottom-line capitalism, technological development and the need to get out a product, and the machinations driven by a threat to the business model of a couple of major corporations. It's a storyline worthy of Robert Ludlum. But this is not fiction, it's a very real story in which the good guys might win. But don't count on it just yet. From The Times comes a story both thrilling and frightening.