Aside from any discussion of the spin, 1st-world do-gooding etc, the absolute bottom line for whether this actually does any good is cost (closely followed by distribution/organization).

There's a veritable glut of seriously awesome designs designed to bring benefit in the developing world -- two of my favourites in the last decade are ColaLife (http://www.colalife.org/ ) and Josh Silver's liquid adjustable glasses (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/22/diy-adjustable... ). While both are incredibly neat, both seem to have have had poor traction (the glasses are, admittedly, doing well, but there's 20 years of work and still only a relative handful in the wild.

In the CNN interview they mention it's provisionally "Not that much more expensive than a regular high-end soccer ball". Sounds like they plan to use the XO get-one-give-one plan.

Unless they can lower the cost, and come up with a funding scheme that doesn't rely on a few nice folk in rich companies buying what will essentially be a useless novelty to them, I don't hold out too much hope for this changing any lives very soon. Sadly.