ANDREA SEABROOK, host:
Now, here's an example of a business with social goals. You may have heard of the One Laptop per Child project, a nonprofit that developed a cheap laptop under $200 for kids in the third world. Well, now one of the top executives at One Laptop per Child has left to form a for-profit company that will market some of the technology she developed. Her name is Mary Lou Jepsen.
Ms. MARY LOU JEPSEN (Founder, Pixel Qi): My company is called Pixel Qi, and we're going to both market the technologies that I invented for One Laptop per Child and extend them.
SEABROOK: Jepsen says there are limits to what a nonprofit business can do. Now that the technology exists, she may be able to reach more needy people than One Laptop per Child can because hers will be a commercial business.
Ms. JEPSEN: There are literally billions of people - the mass market - that could use these devices to improve their lives, join the information age, get access to information that could transform their lives. If we can get this out to more than just children, if we can get it out to more of a cross-section of people, then we can drive the costs down.
SEABROOK: It comes down to manufacturing, Jepsen says, and economies of scale. If she can contract for five million units a month, for example, rather than 500,000, the cost of each laptop drops dramatically. Jepsen believes that in one year, she can get the price of her laptop down to $75. So does this means she'll now compete with the One Laptop per Child project?
Ms. JEPSEN: No. I'm committed to collaborating with One Laptop per Child and then giving them whatever I developed at cost, again, for volume reasons and because it's the right thing to do. Muhammad Yunus is on to something with social businesses because everyone involved works a lot harder. You'll stay up all night because the kids need their laptops. It's finally easing your scale through something that could really matter, could really change the world in a positive way.
SEABROOK: Mary Lou Jepsen's new company is called Pixel Qi.