Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for
Human Resourced Development
launched ‘Aakash’, a low cost
access cum computing device, here today.
This device was also distributed among 500 children on the occasion. Speaking on the occasion the Minister
underlined that Aakash will help in eliminating
digital illiteracy. For this he also
emphasized the need for having high quality study content to be made accessible
to students. He also called for support
and partnership from all so that the device could cost further less, while
praising the team which had worked towards the creation and production of this
device.
Background on the Device
. To ensure complete transparency and a level
playing-field, the National Mission on Education through Information and
Communication Technology (NME-ICT) decided to task one of the IITs (IIT
Rajasthan at Jodhpur) with the job of procuring and testing these devices based
on the design and specifications that the Mission’s team had finalized.
IIT
Rajasthan followed an open tender process.
A three-step process was followed to evaluate the bids that were
received. First, a committee scanned all bids to check their eligibility based
on the conditions specified in the tender. Eligible bids were then evaluated by
a technical evaluation committee comprising of eminent academics and industry
experts. Bids that were found technically suitable were then evaluated by a
financial evaluation committee which then declared the lowest bidder. Following
set government norms, a further negotiation was then held with the lowest
bidder and a further discount obtained from them
On 22nd
July, 2010 Shri Kapil Sibal,
had unveiled a device that was expected to cost “around US$ 35”. The
lowest bidder quoted an ex-factory price of US$ 37.98 which was close to the
cost mentioned by HRM. This cost that comprised of cost of components and material
as well as manufacturing expenses. The final landed price of $49.98/unit (which
translated to INR 2276 at the exchange rate at the time of the order) included taxes,
levies, and charges like freight and insurance, servicing and documentation etc.
The landed price also includes one-year free replacement warranty from the
manufacturer
It
needs to be mentioned that this price does not include any subsidy from the Government and is a price
that has been arrived at following a commercial tender process. The Government will also be providing price subsidy to the students on the price
indicated in the earlier paragraph. The
device will be distributed to students through the institutions at which they
are studying.
The
development of this device has been done in India in a plant at Hyderabad. This
unique device is meant for students across India. Using this device, and the
connectivity also provided under this Mission, learners will be able to access
all the thousands of items of content available on the Sakshat
portal and other educational web-sites
Roadmap
This
current phase was a pilot to procure 100,000 devices. This pilot helped in
sorting out the production related issues. These devices are now being
distributed to students all over the country so that they can be extensively
tested in various climatic and usage conditions. The feedback obtained from the
testing will form an input into the design of the next version of the device.
This is important, as the numbers that the Mission needs to procure are very
large.
To achieve
this, the team of experts working on this project would be broad-based. The
production capacities of Indian manufacturers would also have to be
substantially expanded to meet production requirements of a few million devices
within a six-month time frame
Broadly
speaking, future efforts will move in two directions – to achieve the same
functionality at a lower cost and to achieve added capabilities at the same
cost
MHRD
invites collaboration, ideas and inventions from the community of academics and
experts and inventors to achieve the cherished goals.
Connectivity:
It is
expected that 416 Universities and 20,000 colleges all over India
will be connected under the National Mission on Education through Information
and Communication Technology (NME-ICT). The Mission pays for fiber connectivity
for each University to connect to the nearest NKN node. The Mission has placed
a consolidated order for connecting all Universities and Colleges to BSNL and
about 80% of the Universities and Colleges have been connected already
Content Creation
The National
Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT)
has proposed 18 different line items for content creation. All content that is
created under this Mission needs to meet the following criteria:
·
It should be related to education delivery.
·
It should involve faculty from different institutions
·
All IP (Intellectual Property) created under projects
funded by this Mission will vest with MHRD
·
All content should be created using open-source
software.
·
All content created under this Mission is for open
access by all and cannot be charged for in any way
The
National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology
(NME-ICT) was launched by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development, in
February 2009 with a budget of Rs 4612 crore. The National Mission on Education comprises of
48 different components structured broadly around building CONTENT, enabling
ACCESS and developing LOW COST ACCESS cum COMPUTING DEVICES.
Aakash UbiSlate
7 Specifications
•
Hardware:
–
Processor:
366 Mhz with Graphics accelerator and HD Video
processor
–
Memory
(RAM): 256MB RAM / Storage
(Internal): 2GB Flash
–
Storage
(External): 2GB to 32GB Supported
–
Peripherals
(USB2.0 ports, number): 1 Standard USB
port
–
Audio
out: 3.5mm jack / Audio in: 3.5mm jack
–
Display
and Resolution: 7” display with 800x480 pixel resolution
–
Input
Devices: Resistive touch screen
–
Connectivity
and Networking: WiFi IEEE 802.11 a/b/g
–
Power
and Battery: Up to 180 minutes on battery.
AC adapter 200-240 volt range.
•
Software:
–
OS:
Android 2.2
–
Document
Rendering
•
Supported
Document formats: DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX, ODT, ODP
•
PDF
viewer, Text editor
–
Multimedia
and Image Display
•
Image
viewer supported formats: PNG, JPG, BMP and GIF
•
Supported
audio formats: MP3, AAC, AC3, WAV, WMA
•
Supported
video formats: MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, FLV
–
Communication
and Internet
•
Web
browser - Standards
Compliance: xHTML
1.1 compliant, JavaScript 1.8 compliant
•
Separate
application for online YouTube video
•
Safety
and other standards compliance
–
CE
certification / RoHS
certification
Other: Additional Web Browser: UbiSurfer-Browser with compression/acceleration and IE8 rendering.
MV/GK