It was a great experience to be with nearly 300 Principals of the various schools where Intel Teach program is active on Wednesday July 23, 2008 at RV Teachers College, Jayanagar.
Organized by Prerana Educators Network (President Ms Padmini being an extra-ordinary teacher & organizer), the event was well attended and organized.
Mr. Ashok Manoli in his keynote talked of the need to address issues of “digital divide” and “rural urban divide”.
Mr. Subodh Manav and Mr. Suryanarayanan of Intel were there; it is nice to see the young managers not only arranging Intel funding, but also contributing their personal time.
In my brief talk I brought the attention of the teachers to the fact that Intel Chairman Dr Craig Barrett was a professor at Stanford with an outstanding textbook to his credit.
I also urged the teachers to realize how lucky we are to be the teachers, who shape “India’s Tomorrow” (the true “IT) and how IT will be increasingly “invisible”. I also hinted to them that access (PC, network penetration), availability (reliability & costs) and affordability (costs) will NOT be an issue 5 to10 years from now. The challenge will be to engage the students in all the 4 L’s of Learning, namely, Lecture (e-Learning), Library (Digital Library), Laboratory (remote lab access like iLab) and Life. It will be possible to give “individual” attention to every student using technology (like N=1 of Professor CK Prahalad)
Using the experiment of installing ring tones where COO’s failed but the drivers succeeded, I also put at bay the “digital divide” is more of “digital dividend” (the same can be said of “rural urban divide” too.
