VAR boosts digital literacy in rural India with academy launch

Wembley-based channel player provides laptops, tablets, PCs and software to remote Indian village

Transputec has provided a range of technology to a remote village in India to boost the tech capabilities of the children living in the rural outpost.

The village is in West Bengal and products including laptops, tablets, PCs and software applications have been given to children who have no access to a village school.

The IT unit, named the Transputec Academy, now meets a standard that rivals technology resources in any global educational institution, the VAR claimed.

A team of Transputec staff flew over to install the hardware and WiFi, and will also maintain it and develop dedicated software to provide interactive learning for the eight to 16-year-old students.

"The lives of the villagers are very different to those in India's affluent urban centres," said Rickie Sehgal, chairman of Transputec.

"India may be seen as an emerging tech-savvy global powerhouse, but for much of rural India, where 70 per cent of the population live, it's a completely different story. In some village schools there are up to 150 pupils to a classroom, with just one broken-down computer between them."

The Transputec Academy is part of a project run by Haven, a UK-based charity working to help the poor in rural India. Sehgal's involvement with Haven started 10 years ago, when he discovered how the charity is transforming the lives of villagers in Atla in India and surrounding areas.

The Transputec Academy was launched after "overcoming lengthy bureaucratic hurdles" to install 5km of wireless connection. The centre now has a full-time Haven Academy course co-ordinator and a Transputec course co-ordinator for its 80 students.

Following the United Nations Girls' Education Initiative and a huge number of studies that reveal one of the keys to fighting poverty is female empowerment, Haven has committed 60 per cent of the places in the academy to girls from local villages.

"The future for these girls would have simply been an early marriage," said Sehgal.

"Our academy gives them the chance to explore life-changing career options. We chose to work with Haven as it is a unique charity that invests every penny from its donors back into providing services to this underprivileged community."