By Kendra Srivastava | Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:47 pm |
India plans to supply students with $35 tablets, seeking to make the devices economically accessible in an effort to keep the country's education system globally competitive.
The Indian government handed out free 500 models of the Aakash tablet to students for testing, with future intentions to subsidize 100,000 and eventually 10 million devices.Aakash, meaning "sky" in Hindi, was developed in a partnership between UK-based DataWind and the Indian Institute of Technology, Rajasthan. DataWind's tablet has a seven-inch touchscreen, 256 megabytes of RAM, and runs Android 2.2. It supports video conferencing and has a three-hour battery life, besides being able to withstand high temperatures of Indian summers. In addition to debuting in schools, Aakash is set for commercial production in India as "UbiSlate" and is set to sell for around $60. India's Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal expressed hope that the tablet will further similar devices' technological adoption in education and in daily life, reaching those currently unable to afford such luxuries. "The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded," Sibal said, adding, "Aakash will end that digital divide." Many Indians live on $2 per day and cannot afford devices like Apple's iPad, which retails at $600 since carriers there do not subsidize tablets as they do in the U.S. and Europe. Tablets have so far made little headway, despite India's growing mobile phone adoption, likely because they also require healthy Internet speeds to operate. India's wireless network is growing but 3G and faster connections are rare, rendering tablets obsolete. Indeed, reviews of Aakash say it is slow compared to Apple and Android tablets, highlighting an important barrier to adoption that the device may face. Students who use Aakash, however, may find it is much better than nothing as it will put their technological exposure roughly on par with that of American and European students. Android and Apple tablets are successfully attracting schools' attention, prompting some universities and even kindergarten classrooms to adopt iPads and Galaxy Tabs for instructional purposes. They are replacing textbooks, notebooks and calendars, besides lightening students' backpack loads. India's move to distribute an affordable tablet to its students and citizens suggests the country recognizes how important mobile devices may be for school and general education. If it can overcome hurdles to mass adoption, the government's investment is set to pay off ten times over.
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