NIC, IBM join hands to power the national portal
National Informatics Centre (NIC), announced that it has partnered with IBM to power the national portal of India anytime, anywhere delivery of government services to its citizens. The enhanced portal, based on open standards and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) from IBM, will provide a ‘single point entry’ to government information and services resulting in greater transparency and responsiveness. IBM will bring robust software to make the portal more user friendly, secure and scalable. NIC & IBM will also work together towards ensuring universal accessibility of the Portal for the physically challenged and those using andheld devices
IBM, UP ink deal on IT education
IBM Global Services India and the Uttar Pradesh state government in North India have signed a deal to promote IT education at the grassroots level as well as build capacity and improve skills of the IT workforce. The programme is called Initiative to Nurture a Vibrant IT Ecosystem (INVITE). For the academia, INVITE aims to involve students of technical colleges and universities for creating solutions for local state e-governance at various levels and conduct technical seminars and workshops in major cities in the state to benefit local college teachers and IT entrepreneurs. UP’s principal secretary (IT), Zohra Chatarjee, said INVITE would help in promoting quality IT education at all technical colleges and at the sub-division and village levels, besides upgrading distance education. She said though over 8,000 technical graduates passed out in UP every year, their technical skills in IT were not up to the requirements of the industry. She added that INVITE would upgrade the skills and bridge the gap.
Website to outsource tutoring services from India
A new website will help teachers in India and Pakistan set up their own usiness of teaching students in the US. Catching on to the trend of what is being called educational services outsourcing (ESO), www.tutorswithoutlimits.comover 100,000 teachers in India and Pakistan to set up their Internet businesses. Founded by American IT entrepreneur Glynn Willet and his son, Tutors ithout Limits (TWL) incorporates the new Web 2.0 AJAX technology to reate the most advanced learning system for teaching on the Internet in a system called the Lesson Board. US students usually pay USD40 an hour for tutoring services. However, last year, call centres in India started offering these services for as low as USD14 to USD20 an hour. Now, with the launch of TWL, tutors will be offering their services directly to students in the US at rices they determine. Although initially limited to the US, India and Pakistan, TWL
services will be launched in Canada, Australia, Europe and Japan within two months.
Online study material for MBBS students
Students from medical colleges in the Manipal city can now receive additional training from the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) Manipal, just at the click of a mouse. A new e-learning facility launched as part of MAHE’s new Digital Campus, will provide medical students in the first and second year MBBS with supplementary education material online, to support their regular college curriculum. The whole admission process has been digitised, and will be run on the latest networking technology, the Multi Protocol Label Switch (MPLS) system, which will connect various examination centres across the country. MAHE’s Digital Campus will be wi-fi enabled. A unique eoconferencing facility has also been installed at the campus, wherein live lectures are delivered from the Beaumont Hospital, USA
TN to set up infotech academy
In a bid to improve the standard of computer education in Tamil Nadu, the State Government would set up an IT Academy in Chennai. According to the Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, the academy would have a specific focus on upgrading the curriculum of graduate and post graduate courses, keeping in mind the present day needs. The Union HRD Ministry had decided to establish a National Centre of Excellence called ‘Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing’ at Chennai, which would create a new chapter in the development of IT industry
