This December 2005, I have been invited for presenting seminars/lectures at NIT Rourkela, UCE Burla Engineering, and JITM. I have in mind the twin purposes of sparking quality in higher education, and helping ideas that utilize technology as a positive force for equitable social development.

Goals:  In the most backward districts of Orissa, which itself is one of the poorest states of India, there is a dearth of teachers/professors of quality and erudition.  The students are also often the first generation to be exposed to modern education.  To make the mix still more challenging, some areas are inaccessible, inhabited by tribes who are unaware of the availability of modern amenities, and frequently visited by man-made calamities. The developed areas of the state are also not very advanced either.  The colleges that have been started in various areas of the state like mushrooms over the last decade or so, have similar problems of unavailability of quality teachers and high-quality instruction.

To carry an affordable and resourceful Internet, Remote instruction and Computers to the people is hoped to leapfrog them into the 21^st century.  And this is what may be called “Computing for the masses”.

The few sub-goals of this project, where Intel can bring to bear its considerable strengths, are:

1. Use the computing projects to be set up in schools as an equalizer of standards between urban India, excellence in the world and rural India, in this case Orissa.  We believe the best teachers are needed to teach the most disadvantaged students in the very beginning, to make education both attractive and useful for them. This way technology truly becomes a tool of progress.

2. To provide a faculty-development mechanism – with special emphasis in the areas of VLSI, Computer Networking, Operating Systems and related engineering fields. I have also obtained assurances from a few of my colleagues in the North American universities to provide remote video lectures and courses.

3. To encourage Engineering students of computer science and electronics of a few of the better established colleges, for example National Instituted of Technology, Rourkela (ranked 17^th in the Nation) to take these as student projects for undergraduate and graduate students, to get a feel for innovation and technology.  Similar association is intended with such other institutions as CET of Bhubaneswar, UCE of Burla, and JITM of Paralakhemundi.  The partners will be high schools surrounding these institutes.  They will together develop winning models of Server – thin client robust networks for replication all over the state and beyond. Focus: minimal cost, minimum maintenance and ease of use in open source computing.

4. We believe, with minimal investments of $3 K to $5 K per school we can take distant education to remote areas, starting first with computer use and computer familiarization and use of Internet – for which they can earn money to run the center.

5. If and when perfected, with internet broadband communications, we can then leverage master teachers (scientists, professors, researchers located any where) to teach over internet to remotely located colleges.   We can take quality teachers to about 35 plus Engineering colleges which have come up in the backward districts and level the instructional deficiency. 

6. We only need a bunch of obsolete computers (thin clients) and a server at each project site with a back up of Internet connection to leap frog the technology level of the schools --- to realize the promise of internet and Intel technology, and to leverage Intel’s tradition of community involvement. 

7. Moreover, this way we drive up a demand side for quality education throughout the country.

Thus Intel can help by supporting to set up these projects at 2 to 4 different sites and by funding faculty-development workshops.

Priyadarsan Patra

Intel Labs (Strategic CAD Labs of TMG)

5032648258 (Off)