New Delhi: Pravartak Technologies at the IIT Madras, has partnered up with Asha for Education to launch Rural Technology Centres in Tamil Nadu. This is to promote computer science education among government school students in rural areas across the state.
Two Asha IIT Madras Pravartak Rural Technology Centres were inaugurated on February 11, 2022, at Kanakamma Chathram and Seethanjeri Villages of Tiruvallur District.
These technology centres will provide training to the students of classes 9 to 12. The foundation is also providing financial assistance for this project along with technical support.
IIITH Raj Reddy Center’s inaugural conference on Technology and Society deliberates on how emerging technologies can assist and enable rural education and healthcare. Register at https://t.co/kqgpkCyRbg pic.twitter.com/rJgr3t8iDj
— IIIT Hyderabad (@iiit_hyderabad) February 11, 2022
Lauding the initiative, V Kamakoti, Director at IIT Madras, has commented on how it is a consequence of the larger vision of IIT Madras.
“IIT Madras is committed to working towards providing access to quality education and technology to students belonging to rural areas of our country. The setting up of these two rural technology centres mark the beginning of our journey”, as stated by him.
About Asha for Education:
Asha for Education is known to be a global action group, formed to enhance the socio-economic changes in India through the education of underprivileged children. Since 2015, it has been working with the elementary and middle schools to educate students in digital literacy and computational thinking.
The group makes use of advanced block-based programming tools like ‘Scratch’ from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and ‘Blockly’ from Google to teach programming.
Courses on Digital Literacy and Programming:
Based on the assessment of the enrolled students’ levels, the Asha team is planning to begin new courses on basic digital literacy and the basics of programming. Instructions will be given for two-thirds of the course and one-third will be left for the project works. The children are to create a presentation or software programme all by themselves.
These two courses will be followed up further with Code.org courses on web page design, animation, hardware-based programming and so on. Eventually, the plan is to introduce more advanced technologies such as 3-D Printing, Robotics, AI and so on to the children.
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