With the one laptop per child scheme turning out to be a bit of a damper, Government of India has taken another step with an objective to make technology accessible to every child in the country Minister of Human Resources and Development, Communications and Information technology, Kapil Sibal launched a Tablet called Aakash with an aim to provide technology access especially to children of rural areas. It has been designed, developed and manufactured by DataWind Limited in partnership with IIT Rajasthan, under the HRD ministry.
While considering the moment as an important milestone in the history of India, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said, “The rich and prosperous can have easy access to the digital world but the poor and ordinary have excluded from reaching technology. Aakash will eliminate the digital divide by bridging the difference.”
The Aaksh is an Android 2.2 based 7.0-inch touchscreen tablet, which is equipped with HD video co- processor, core graphics accelerator, 256 MB RAM and also has two USB ports. It has browsing capability along with 3G and Wifi support. The device has 2 GB internal memory and comes bundled with 2 GB microSD card. The memory of the device can be expanded up to 32 GB.
DataWind CEO, Suneet Singh Tuli said, “This is not only a concept that applies to India, but has ignited the imagination of governments around the world. The Aakash is proudly made in India and is destined to revolutionise computing and internet access for the world.” DataWind has established a new production facility in Hyderabad, India.
The event was followed by free distribution of the tablets to near about 500 students of different institutions of various states across India.
“I am very happy to receive this tablet. It is going to be my first experience of using a tablet so I am really excited. I think it will really help me in my education because the device is equipped with lots of E books and lectures by eminent people,” said Gagan Goyal, student of Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, Ghaziabad.
As the tablet is intended for students, 100, 000 tablets will be given to the government at an all inclusive price of Rs 2, 250 which will be further given to institutes and colleges all across the country by the government at subsidized rate of Rs 1, 750. There is no conformity over when the product will be available for commercial use and for common people, but according to the sources even then the tablet will cost below Rs 3,000.
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