$9 computer killing it on Kickstarter

SAN FRANCISCO — Who wants a $9 computer? A lot of people.

While Apple may produce wildly sleek laptops and desktops for those with thousands of dollars to spend, people with considerably smaller budgets may be intrigued by CHIP, a Raspberry Pi-based motherboard that can be connected to peripherals (keyboard, monitor) and the Internet (via Wi-Fi).

Next Thing, based in Oakland, Calif., put its deck-of-cards-size unit on Kickstarter this month with a fundraising goal of $50,000 — and has surpassed $700,000 from 15,000 backers. The campaign closes June 6.

CHIP boasts a suite of useful capabilities anchored to a 1-gigahertz processor with 512 megabytes of RAM and 4 gigs of storage. LibreOffice allows users to create spreadsheets, Scratch lets them play and create games, and a Chromium browser connects them to the Internet.

"We're honestly surprised," says Dave Rauchwerk, CEO of Next Thing, which he describes as "nine dudes in Oakland making a $9 computer." Mostly, he says, he was concerned that consumers would not fully understand that CHIP was a versatile product.

"Given how much funding we're getting, it's safe to say that maybe today people realize that computers don't necessarily look like what you think they look like," Rauchwerk says.

The genesis of CHIP was seeing that Chinese companies were pumping out tablets "that cost around $36, so we figured, what if you strip that all out and are just left with the brains inside, what would that cost?"

Rauchwerk and his small team then went about "smoothing out the edges" of those Chinese tablet-oriented boards, and made them more computer-focused in the process. He says he didn't start out pursuing a product that could tackle the growing tech issues of accessibility, education and connectivity, "but once we'd built CHIP, we realized it could help with all three."

Today, about 4.4 billion people around the world still do not have Internet access. Inexpensive options such as CHIP — as well as do-it-yourself computer kits such as Kano ($149) — represent opportunities to both close the technology gap in developing and developed countries alike, while encouraging children to learn coding, due to their approachable design.

Next Thing will begin shipping its inexpensive computer this fall to those backing the project at the highest level, $489 for 10 CHIPs along with 10 PocketCHIPs, a handheld device with a keyboard that CHIP snaps into. (One CHIP and PocketCHIP is available at the $49 funding level.) Ultimately, all products will be shipping out by May 2016.

"All we're doing is taking advantage of tremendous economies of scale," Rauchwerk says. "It's great that so many people are excited."