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"Aakash Is An OLPC Wannabe"
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Satish Jha, head of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) India Foundation, believes that the Indian Government had billed Aakash as an answer to OLPC.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012:
The failure of world's cheapest tablet device Aakash reinforced the fact that there is nothing called cheap and best. The non-performance of the $35 tablet proved that quality comes with price. Probably the Indian Government realised it with time, which is why it has now asked Datawind, the maker of Aakash, to supply upgraded version of the device at the same price.
The launch of Aakash will remain an important event in the history of the Indian technology world. A device which had loads of aspiration value came with much fanfare but it could not sustain the initial success it received. Techies say that with the given specs, Aakash was supposed to fail. Satish Jha, head of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) India Foundation, believes that Aakash failed because it is an OLPC wannabe. EFYTimes spoke exclusively to Jha about the failure of Aakash and his plans for OLPC in India.
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What do you think about the present developments of Aakash?
Before I talk about the current developments, let me take you to the flash back. The idea of a $10 computer was conceived by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) after the launch of $100 OLPC laptop. The Government firmly believed what the West could do, India can do for a 10th the cost. Later, when OLPC was launched for $200, the Government felt it may cost $20 instead. Once OLPC came to India, including various duties and shipping charges, the cost came to about $300 and the MHRD tablets price moved in the $30 to $35 range. When the minister announced the project, he made direct reference to OLPC on 22 July 2010 and same sentiments were echoed in later pronouncements.
OLPC has been the inspiration for educating the underprivileged with the help of computers movement. It brought down the cost of laptop within 10 per cent of the price of average laptop by redesigning a laptop for education even in the remotest part of the world. It created the first flash drive based laptop that the world did not think possible, it made laptops moisture proof, shock-proof, with sun readable screen, dust-proof, good to withstand (-) 20 degree to +60 degree Celsius temperature as a standard feature. It offers dual operating system, mesh networking that works with and without Internet, low-power device consuming Rs 200 in electricity over five years compared to Rs 15,000 by a desktop, solar charged or hand cranked, intuitive for children to get started both with and without a teacher, nearly every skill one needs to learn offered as applications for free, Wikipedia pre-loaded and nearly every feature is state of the art and made available for the first time. Each of its component was designed specially for OLPC with the world’s best scientists, engineers and designers and much more. That inspiration led to the ‘netbook’ revolution that wanted to be part-OLPC.
We called it ‘olpc’ in small letters as it was all a movement in the direction of bringing computing power closer to the students who could not afford it. We also look at every initiative in that direction as ‘olpc’ since they may not have all the pieces of the puzzle that addresses the question of education for the underprivileged. MHRD's aspirations took the shape of Sakshat billed at $35. Sakshat was very limited in its approach to become ‘olpc’. Aakash offered even less than Sakshat had aimed at and for almost twice the cost. I think that the Government had billed Aakash as an answer to OLPC.
The Indian Government is planning to float tender for Aakash 2. Would OLPC bid for that?
As long as the tender is for education, includes hardware with all the software and networking, for a rugged laptop that is useful in villages and the cost is not fixed at what is not viable, OLPC may be willing to respond to Government's aspirations to help education of the underprivileged. However, if it is only for a device at a price point with little interest in making it meaningful for education, it may not be designed to benefit from OLPC.
What do you think went wrong with Aakash?
The biggest challenge in Aakash project is the understanding of what is required for educating the underprivileged. Aakash was not targeting the privileged who do have access to some of the best schools in rote learning system. But it is aiming to make a device to a price point rather than what to do with it, without paying full attention to what the students need. That was unlikely to win hearts beyond a sense of initial euphoria about India doing something unique. It is indeed unique for no one, with a sense of the market and how technologies develop and products get created, would take that route. The US is the greatest technology creator and China is the largest manufacturer. India is neither. So how could India create anything cheaper than the cheapest without either creating a new technology that made processor and screen cheaper or having a scale greater than China's.
In the event, Aakash became a product where virtually every piece was bought from the cheapest part of the world market and slapped together without any significant experience of making such devices. Both, moving up the learning curve, as in technology creation, and experience curve, as in product creation are critical to making anything cheaper. Aakash has had none of these advantages and it was simply trying to produce something to a price point without going through the complete product creation process. To call it an Indian product is equally debatable. And those who understand product creation cycle may consider it a pre-beta product. In other words, it's not something ready for the market just yet.
Datawind wants a 'Made in India' clause in the next tender of the upgraded version of the device. What’s your take on that?
Should Datawind say so, it will confirm the suspicion that its Ubislate is not made in India and simply procured at cheaper price from overseas and sold to the Government of India at a margin. If Datawind does make the cheapest tablet, why should it fear anyone else competing with it? As IIT Jodhpur's Prem Kalara has been quoted, it is not easy to have clarity on what can be called ‘Manufactured in India’. Technologies are global and India should go for the best value there is and not the cheapest price. As I have said earlier, Datawind has said it will cost them $1500 to just make Ubislate moisture proof and shockproof and meet the temperature requirements, all of which are standard in OLPC. I am very clear on my personal view that any computer available in the market is too expensive vis-a-vis OLPC XO, even if they were priced at $0.
Has your conversation with the Central Government about OLPC reached any point?
We are always engaged with the Government as educating 250 million Indian students the way they can, and must, to become capable citizens is something only the Government can do. The private schools are not our focus as they can afford whatever they want. India's challenge in education is in reaching out to its villages and the underprivileged. Having said that, the Government's intent to use technology in education has been beset with several challenges. Its ICT@School programme does not let students access computers and they remain mostly locked up in a computer room. Its computer-aided learning is reinforcing rote learning. Both are a bit like initial use of computers by corporations a decade ago when they were busy hardwiring the mess they inherited.
OLPC is an opportunity for the Government of India and the states to fix education without first creating brick buildings and educating teachers, something 65 years of freedom has not helped us achieve. Children need to study now and denying them what they can learn today deprives them of their future just as much as it does not allow India to grow the way it can. OLPC movement is about making the Governments aware of the opportunity that OLPC offers as a ‘school in a box’ or as a ‘cell phone of education’ or ‘Shantiniketan of education’. I sincerely hope our conversations with the Government lead to changing the future of both the children and the nation.
What do you think have been the reasons for Central Government not adopting OLPC, despite the fact that many states have promoted it?
School education in India is a concurrent subject mostly lead by state governments. The Central Government can assist by creating new programmes, as in the case of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and offer to contribute 80 to 90 per cent of cost of educating children. However, the Central Government has been engaged in creating cheap laptops, initially for $10 followed by $35 and now for $60 rather than using what the best in technology have delivered to the world for education of the underprivileged. The Central Government's focus seems to have been more on ‘access devices’ rather than education and learning with computers. However, the state governments have a real challenge. Kerala accepted OLPC in one day of proposal, Manipur in one week, Himachal CM accepted it in one meeting as well and so did Rajasthan CM. UP Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Board voted for OLPC and requested MHRD to accord approval that has not come for three years now. When the Orissa government requested MHRD, the response was to try one computer per class or wait for a cheap laptop that is yet to be available after five years of efforts. OLPC is at one with the Government in its aspirations. It is up to the Government to see what it has missed out on in the past five years by not adopting OLPC. If we value India's children as much as they are capable of delivering to build a new the future for India, it will be great to start with OLPC now.
Since India is planning for Aakash 2, do you think OLPC finds place in this scenario?
Aakash may not be the world’s cheapest device by any means as these devices are available in Asian markets for lower prices and do not address the question of education. OLPC stands for learning and education that is meaningful and hopes that the policy planners will see the meaning of OLPC in the course of time. OLPC is not being ‘marketed’ for profit. It is an opportunity for governments to achieve what they have not managed to achieve despite all their efforts since freedom from colonial yokes.
What kind of help can OLPC extend to the Indian education system?
OLPC offers an opportunity to the Government of India to help every child, even in the remotest part of the country where there is no electricity, no school building worth the name or no desk or no fully trained teachers or no text books and blackboards and chalks, to start learning today like the best in the world do. It can reduce the drop out rate among students to as low as possible. It can increase the attendance of both teachers and students as it has done in 45 other countries. And India can achieve that for Rs 7 a child per day if it expands the programme like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and that is less than the cost of mid-day meal.
By using OLPC, India can plan to have a citizenry in 15 to 20 years where every single Indian, and not just the 1 per cent, will stand shoulder to shoulder with the best on the planet. That cannot be achieved by partial approaches to education and learning and OLPC offers an opportunity to offer a complete learning environment for the poorest. OLPC democratises quality education to every child in much less than most Governments spend today for mere dysfunctional literacy for less than $1 per week. OLPC can help the Government start a real educational revolution like the one in Uruguay and Peru that has changed the way their children learn in the past four years.
What are the specs of the laptop?
OLPC laptops come with 1 GB RAM, 1GHz clock speed, 4 GB of storage, 3 USB ports, WiFi, peer to peer mesh networking that no other computer comes with, a sun readable screen, shock proof, moisture proof, dust proof, solar chargeable, low power of 1 to 2 watts, multi-operating system environment, all the applications that children need from reading, writing, speaking, conversation, maths, physics, Wikipedia, toys, typing turtle and a whole range of games that make learning fun. So OLPC is NOT just a hardware. Its hardware+software+networking combined in one. It automatically networks with all other OLPC laptops even where there is no Internet and can be used as a last mile solution for connecting India's villages that have no access just by deploying then now.
In what all countries has the laptop been a success? Plz quote some incidences.
Uruguay has a 100 per cent deployment where every single child from 5 to 14 years of age is learning with OLPC laptops and where the Government issued a postal stamp commemorating its success and where the President called it a ‘vaccine against ignorance’. Peru is reaching about a million children learning with OLPC. Even Rwandan President Paul Kagame used the Government funds to order two rounds of 100,000 children each to get every Rwandan child become creative learner. In Peru, the Central Ministry of Education has put OLPC sculpture in front of its education ministry symbolising the fundamental change it has brought about in that country's education, something that could not have been done without OLPC.
Is the laptop available in the retail market? If no, do you have any plans to bring it to the retail market in the near future?
OLPC is NOT available in the retail market nor will it be as that will not meet the basic requirements for OLPC deployment and these are: (1) children should be young or ‘early adoption’; (2) if one child has it every child should have it or ‘saturation’ and (3) child ownership. Retail cannot guarantee that every child in a school or class will have it. There are no retail outlets in villages and school education is a state subject and right o education means that the state shall provide. Where does retail get into education when educating every child to the level of his/her potential is the goal?
It's not just Aakash in India. OLPC has enough competition in India as far as low-cost computing devices are concerned. With so many devices available in the Indian market and that too low-cost ones, do you think OLPC has a place?
OLPC has a place for anyone who has interest in education and learning. The cheap devices are cheap because they do not do all that OLPC does. OLPC is an opportunity for us to make every citizen become who he or she wants to become. Every other device in the market is just a device that can help in one way or the other. To even posit the question suggests that we are not looking at education. Education does not happen by a device. It requires a whole learning environment. While every other traditional computer is a screen and processor and keyboard- physical or virtual- slapped together, OLPC is a computer designed to engage children in learning. As different as an early robot is from a human being. All that the Government or anyone has to do is visit Uruguay or Peru or Rwanda or Khairat School near Mumbai or Keekerwali in Rajasthan or Udaan schools in Uttarakhand and it will know the difference.
Diksha P Gupta, EFYTIMES News Network
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