...if Intel was also paying for textbooks in the 3 R's.

3rd world market primary and secondary textbooks are about a dollar a pop. Second world univeristy textbooks are about $5.00 dollars a pop. How about Intel sets up an annuity with $50e6 funding to buy a couple million textbooks a year for the next couple decades?

OLPC is great PR for Negreponte, but OLPC in fact will not be a reality in Africa until Africa has a decent functional economy.

Decent functional economies require an educated populace. 

Start at the beginning, Intel. You'll get a bigger better richer market in the end that way.

Wimax might actually be the best (the only?) solution to bring broadband to a large percentage of Africa.