Agastya and Lenovo embark on a unique initiative to improve the quality of education in the city.
Agastya International Foundation, a non-profit educational trust that seeks to transform education in semi-urban and rural schools and Lenovo, the world’s largest PC+ maker, have announced a new initiative, ‘Lab-On-a-Tab’ aimed at making education more interactive and effective in the government schools of Bengaluru. ‘Lab-On-a-Tab’ aims to provide self-paced, high quality hands-on education to supplement the existing teaching and learning methods at such schools. This will be implemented by using technology from Lenovo to convert physical experiments into e-experiments for the children.
At the launch phase of this initiative, students and teachers of Government schools will be provided Lenovo A-1000 tablets. The program will reach out to more schools in the subsequent phases of implementation. The Tablets are pre-loaded with applications, designed by Agastya Foundation and C-DAC, to enable the teacher in engaging the students through interactive learning. The modules covered through the tablets are also related to the existing curriculum followed by the schools so that the content is relevant and age appropriate.
Commenting on the association with Lenovo, K. Thiagarajan, COO, Agastya International Foundation at Labs said, “Technology has a prominent role in improving the quality of education to make the regular class room sessions more interactive and interesting. Through child- friendly devices that are easily portable and require no extra installation, Lenovo has proved to be the perfect partner to infuse technology with education and help not only students, but also help teachers to improve their teaching skills. We chose Lenovo Tablets as they are compatible with local language fonts which make it user friendly for both teachers and students. “
Speaking on the occasion, Bhaskar Choudhuri, Director – Marketing, Lenovo India said, “We have come a long way in our journey as a global technology leader and believe that this is an opportune time to give back to society. This is our first step in enabling education and we are excited to partner with Agastya, a non-profit organisation that has worked with researchers, teachers and schools from around the world to bring innovative science education to the doorstep of Government schools in various states of India.” Agastya International Foundation seeks to transform and stimulate the thinking of economically disadvantaged children in schools where access to the Internet and technology is limited.
The use of the Lenovo A-1000 android tablet makes it possible for teachers to use ‘Lab-On-a-Tab’ on battery when there is no Internet access. Since the tablets are easily portable and require no extra installation, it also makes it easy to maintain the devices. Agastya has also partnered with Samhita Social Ventures for this implementation, which brings together companies, donor organizations and high net-worth individuals to collaborate with NGOs and social enterprises. They have access to a network of 20,000 NGOs nationwide and work with several leading companies to shape their CSR strategy, facilitate program implementation and measure impact.
