A $100 solar-powered tablet is coming soon

You may not have heard of Yves Behar, but chances are you've seen his designs. He's the visionary behind the popular Jawbone Jambox sound system, Herman Miller's Sayl chairs, Swarovski chandeliers, and even New York City's free condoms.

The Swiss designer, now based in San Francisco, has plenty of commercial hits. That gives him thefinancial freedom to pursue his belief that design can change the world. It's a passion he put to work on his most famous project, One Laptop Per Child, better known as "the $100 laptop."

Now he's nearing completion of the sequel: A $100 tablet. It's rugged, solar-powered, and designed for children in the world's poorest countries.

"The tablet is a refinement of the laptop," Behar told CNN's Sanjay Gupta in interviews for The Next List. "It's much smaller, it's much lighter, it uses less energy, less materials -- it can be even more cost effective."

The project began six years ago when Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's Media Lab, approached Behar with an idea many deemed impossible: create an inexpensive and impeccably designed laptop for children across the world.

"He described to me his vision of education, his vision for technology being available to all," Behar says."I got very inspired for the first time in the field of technology."

Click here to continue reading: http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/24/technology/yves_behar_next_list/index.htm