Peru is the latest country to sign on for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative.

The country's Ministry of Education on Tuesday signed an agreement to purchase 40,000 o XO laptops, with the option to buy 210,000 more units in future. The devices will be distributed to primary school kids in remote areas of Peru from now until February 2008, according to OLPC.

Peru's government has also authorized the participation of its local regions. The Tumbes region in northwest Peru, for example, will provide XO laptops to 22,000 of its primary school children.

Officials in Peru have been experimenting with the laptops since May 2007, and decided to firm up their commitment after seeing positive results, OLPC said.

In October, the Technology Laboratory of Uruguay also signed a contract for 100,000 XO laptops, a deal that can be extended to include 400,000 units.

The OLPC Foundation recently kicked off a two-for-one promotion that allows individuals to purchase one laptop for themselves and donate another to a child in need, all for $399. Participants will also receive one-year free access to T-Mobile's HotSpot Broadband Internet service.

A spokeswoman said Thursday that that effort, which started on Nov. 12, has thus far raised $24 million.

The promotion was initially intended to run for two weeks, but has since been extended to Dec. 31.

"Latest figure on the promotion--21 days through last Sunday night--are 112,000 laptops," which works out to $24 million, according to a spokeswoman.

OLPC is funded by corporate partners like Google, AMD, News Corporation, Red Hat, Brighstart, Quanta, and Marvell. The Give One Get One campaign operates separately through the OLPC Foundation.

"Prior to the Give One Get One campaign, individual contributions were miniscule because OLPC didn't do any big marketing push to reach individuals and the donation page was pretty buried on the Web site," she said.

OLPC last month was sued over a keyboard design that allegedly infringes upon a Nigerian patent. It is not clear, however, if Nigeria even has patent laws. At the time, OLPC said it had not yet seen the suit, and said that "to OLPC's knowledge, all of the intellectual property used in the XO Laptop is either owned by OLPC or properly licensed."

When asked for an update, a spokesman said Thursday that they aren't commenting further on the lawsuit.