Though the OLPC project was originally designed to empower school children in developing nations with a laptop each, earlier this year OLPC’s founder Nicholas Negroponte revealed that the initiative planned to spin out a separate organization during 2008, dubbed OLPC America, to bring their low-cost laptop computers to under-served students in the United States as well.

While the OLPC spin-off hasn’t officially launched yet, it appears that the XO laptop will soon make its way into the US with the city of Birmingham set to start deploying the first of 15,000 units to its school system later this month. The roll-out will continue throughout the year and into 2009, all while the city puts Wi-Fi access points into place in its school system to fully utilize the XO’s network capabilities.