WORLD’S FIRST $100 LAPTOP UNVEILED AT UNITED NATIONS TODAY

Brightstar, a Leading Investor and Partner in Global Educational Initiative Tied to $100 Laptop, Available for Interviews Related to Role in the Program

MIAMI – November 16, 2005 – Brightstar, a leading logistics and supply chain management company for the wireless industry, is available for interviews related to today’s unveiling of the MIT Media Lab’s “One Laptop Per Child” not-for-profit initiative.

Brightstar is one of a handful of leading organizations investing and supporting this program.

The laptop prototype imagery was released earlier this week in an article in the Wall Street Journal. Additional corporate participants cited include: Google, Advanced Micro Devices, Red Hat, and News Corp.

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Additional Information Regarding the Program
One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, is an organization dedicated to enhancing worldwide primary and secondary education through the implementation and delivery of a $100 laptop. The organization seeks to make extremely low cost laptop computers that can be manufactured and distributed to literally every child in the world.

Brightstar Corp. has joined other corporate collaborators in this project, each of whom have been selected to provide support in their area of expertise in the development and distribution of this extremely low-cost technology tool. Brightstar, a leader in wireless distribution and supply chain management, will provide logistics and supply chain expertise.

Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, said, “Brightstar, known for innovation in the wireless technology industry, joins the MIT Media Lab to change the face of education across the globe.”

Negroponte continued, “This selected group of organizations has shown their commitment and leadership in closing the digital divide in emerging countries, focusing on providing access to life-altering technology and information to children across the globe.

“This program is critical to improving education globally,” said R. Marcelo Claure, CEO and president of Brightstar. “We are pleased to be able to participate in such a revolutionary initiative and believe it will literally transform the way that people learn and access information.”

The OLPC initiative is targeting some of the poorest children in the world in nations such as Brazil, China, Thailand, Egypt and India. The group is in discussions with the Brazilian government to be a manufacturing center for the $100 laptop.

Claure added, “Brightstar’s customers and employees live and work in many of the targeted markets, allowing us to see firsthand the positive effects and give back to the communities that we serve today.”

The $100 laptop is envisioned as a Linux-based, full color, full screen laptop enabled with both WiFi and cellular technology and produced to be able to handle a rugged, child’s environment. The laptop project, through OLPC, is headed by an elite team of scientific, educational theorists with backgrounds in both academia and industry. They include:

• Nicholas Negroponte, chairman and co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, a recognized authority on information technology and author of Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages;
• Seymour Papert, professor emeritus at the MIT Media Lab, who is an early pioneer of artificial intelligence and one of the world’s leading theorists on child learning;
• Alan Kay, creator of the Smalltalk language and credited as the “father of personal computing,” his pioneering work in computers has often been influenced by his interest in children and education;
• Joseph Jacobson, a physicist and professor at the MIT Media Lab, as well as inventor of low cost “electronic ink” displays which is one of the display technologies being considered for the $100 laptop;
• Mary Lou Jepsen, a leader in display technology and former head of technology in Intel’s display division;
• V. Michael Bove, Jr., a principal research scientist at the MIT Media Lab, who developed groundbreaking research in video compression
• Mitchel Resnick, professor of learning research at the MIT Media Lab and co-founder of the worldwide network of Computer Clubhouses for children; and
• Ted Selker, MIT Media Lab professor and inventor of numerous patents for products ranging from notebook computers to operating systems.
The group and its corporate partners are targeting late 2006 for the first distribution of $100 laptops. For more information about the project, visit http://laptop.media.mit.edu.

About One Laptop Per Child
One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. The laptops will be provided to governments at cost and issued to children by schools on a basis of one laptop per child. These machines will be rugged, Linux-based, and so energy efficient that hand-cranking alone will generate sufficient power for operation. Mesh networking will give many machines Internet access from one connection. The pricing goal is to start at $100 and then steadily decrease.

OLPC is based on “constructionist” theories of learning pioneered by Seymour Papert and later Alan Kay, as well as the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital. The founding corporate members are Google, News Corp, AMD, Red Hat, and Brightstar. All three individuals and five companies are active participants in OLPC.

About the MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Laboratory is an international leader in the development of innovative digital media and information technologies, and has pioneered a uniquely flexible, non-hierarchical organization, designed to encourage unconventional and counter-intuitive thinking. Housed in an award-winning I.M. Pei building, the Media Lab is located on the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Always a hotbed of innovative artistic expression, the Media Lab is increasing technologies and concepts that foster creativity-empowering people of all ages, from all walks of life, in all societies, to design and invent new possibilities for them and the communities around them.

About Brightstar
Brightstar Corp. is a leading distributor and provider of value added supply chain services to the wireless telecom industry, and also designs and manufacturers products under licensing agreements with leading manufacturers. Headquartered in Miami, FL, Brightstar has operations in Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay, the U.S. and Venezuela. The company serves over 160 network operators and 15,000 resellers, retailers and agents around the world and also represents many of the world’s leading wireless manufacturers. During the year ending 2004, Brightstar’s revenues exceeded $1.7 billion. For more information, visit http://www.brightstarcorp.com.