Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has confirmed (last November) his commitment of giving 50,000 laptops to Ethiopia. The importance of the funding is its exemplary nature -
it is model for other European countries and the EU itself to follow.
Nicholas Negroponte has recently said in an Interview that a
Give 1 Get 1 program for Italians to donate more laptops to Ethiopia was under consideration to be launched very soon. Perhaps the program could even provide a second donated laptop by the Italian government as a donation matching encitement. So for perhaps 300€, Italians will give 1 to Ethiopia, the government will match the donation with another to Ethiopia and 1 laptop will come to the Italian person who donated. The exact way the donations are considered in Italy has not been detailed but this is how I expect it could happen.