eINDIA 2013

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September 6, 2013

Convened with the theme of ‘Building a Knowledge Society,’ eINDIA 2013 Summit was held on 23-24 July, 2013, at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad. The Summit was divided into three parallel thematic tracks on Governance, Education and Health. The eINDIA 2013 was inaugurated by the N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh. It provided a platform for discussions between key government officials, industry experts, stakeholders, and private players on the issue of ICT implementation in governance, education and healthcare. Inclusive growth can only become a reality when the government takes some significant initiatives for deployment of ICT in all the major areas – this is the clear message that emerged from the eINDIA 2013 Summit.

With eight separate sessions on government policies in education, school education, management education, technical education, private universities and industry-academia interface, the summit became an effective congregation for all the stakeholders in the education community.

N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh

Information technology has evolved much in the past 25 years. It is very important that technology must be cheap and affordable. It should be within the reach of common man and must change their life. For a government, it is very essential that any citizen of the state must get government services which he requires in an easy, accessible and corruption free manner. The concept of Mee Seva was initiated in a review meeting where I expressed the need for a system which could deliver services to the citizens in just 15 minutes.

Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister – IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Youth is the biggest power and asset of India. Talent has wiped out the barriers between the rich and the poor. I want to make Hyderabad a synonym for letter H. We want to make Hyderabad a global leader in Information Technology. World Bank rated Hyderabad as the best metro city in India.

Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Information Technology & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Mee Seva, from a very modest beginning of 100 centres, 10 services, and one district, has now got 7000 centres, 150 services across the state of Andhra Pradesh. We have covered more than 2 crore 35 lakh transactions in the last one year.

Creating World Class Education Infrastructure

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September 5, 2013

Despite many challenges, education sector in Afghanistan is gradually improving. How satisfied are you with the achievements made so far?
Education in Afghanistan is making exemplary progress. Rather, we should say achievements in education are beyond our imagination. In last eleven years, a revolution has taken place in education. Large pool of students are moving for education within Afghanistan and beyond. For example, over 7000 students are currently studying in India and there are 10.5 million children who are attending school in Afghanistan. But, I understand that we need to strike more to make further progress in terms of quality and quantity. You also have to take into account the fact that no country has gone through the kind of trouble we faced. We have started from scratch and I am proud to say that by now we have made substantial progress. We are a country of 30 million people; about 75 percent of population is below 25 years of age, which means we have the youth energy to take our country far ahead.

“India is playing a highly constructive role in Afghanistan. Other countries in the neighbourhood should look at the kind of relationship that exists between India and Afghanistan and learn a lesson from it,” says Shaida Mohammad Abdali, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to India, in conversation with Mohd Ujaley

What kind of enthusiasm for education do you see in the Afghan people when you meet them?
Let me tell you a real story, when I was the Deputy National Security Advisor and Special Assistant to the President of Afghanistan, I met a man from rural part of Afghanistan who was totally under the influence of radical groups. I asked him how he and his children were doing and where they went to school. I was quite surprised to know that despite all the problems of the security, he was sending his kids to school. And, when I asked him – are not you afraid? He said, he wants his son to be dead rather than uneducated. That is the kind of mood about education in Afghanistan and this is leading to increased enrolment.

“Equity, inclusion and quality are big challenges for the developing countries of the world”

Channelising the energy of young people in right direction is a challenge. What initiatives are you taking to ensure development in terms of equity, inclusion and quality?
Equity, inclusion and quality are big challenges for the developing countries of the world. In Afghanistan, we are in the process of making seminal improvements. Every year we are making new progress; there is improvement in quality, capacity and new infrastructure is being created. Equity and inclusion are directly related to availability of venue for education for each and every individual. We are coming up with new schools and creating in institutions for higher education. As far as, quality is concerned, we are focusing on teachers training. Earlier, we did not have enough qualified teachers but now the trends are changing. Our teachers are being trained in Afghanistan and elsewhere. For me, the most important thing is that these initiatives have raised the interest of the people in bringing their children to schools.

“75 percent of our population is below the age of 25 years and over 7000 students from Afghanistan are studying in India”

The proportion of girls’ enrolment in Afghanistan has risen from zero to 42 percent. Most interestingly around 35 percent of teachers are women. What are the reasons behind this achievement?
It is the inspiration of the people that has led to this achievement. Young population of Afghanistan has, during the last few years, witnessed the consequences of lack of education due which they did not progress, did not have their own voice and did not have the potential to shoulder the responsibility for developing their country. After the bitter experience of the last two decades, they want our people to be fully equipped with education.

India is playing an important role in re-building of Afghanistan. How do you look at Indo-Afghan relationship?
I am very pleased with what India has done in Afghanistan during the last 12 years. India has contributed immensely. I am thankful to India and Indians for the way they are sharing their own bread and butter with the Afghan people. We are grateful to India for helping in developing developing new infrastructure in Afghanistan. India is building the Parliament, Salma Dam and other important infrastructure projects. I think, in the long run, the biggest impact of the help that comes from India will be in the area of education.
Currently, we have around 7000 students studying in India. They are very bright, very happy and highly motivated. We would like to have more scholarships especially in medical, engineering and professional education.

It is highly probable that after the withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan, the dynamics of the region will change. What kind of changes do you see in the foreign policy of Afghanistan?
If you look at the past history of Afghanistan, you will realise that this is a nation whose foreign policy has never been dictated from outside. Those who try to influence Afghanistan’s foreign policy are always defeated. My advice is to learn from the past, whether it is Pakistan or any other country. Afghanistan is not going to succumb to any pressure from any country. We have a mutually beneficial strategic partnership with India, and that we hope will continue in future. Afghanistan wants to have a good relationship with all its neighbours and with every other nation. Other countries in the neighbourhood should look at the kind of relationship that exists between India and Afghanistan and learn a lesson from it. Is there any plan to develop a deeper collaboration between universities in India and Afghanistan? We are keen to develop relationship between the universities of India and Afghanistan. Recently, I met Dr P R Trivedi, the chancellor of Global Open University. We discussed in detail about the ways by which we can revive the relationship in the area of education. We need more exchange programmes for students and professors. We are planning to open Global Open University in Kabul; eventually more such institutions will be opened across Afghanistan. We also had a very productive meeting with Dr Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development. During the meeting we decided that a consultive body must be created to improve collaboration between the two nations in higher and school education. We are also in discussion with many other countries including USA for improving the quality of education in our country.

Spain: Marking Q A& Global perspective Excellence in Higher Education

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September 5, 2013

Spain is transitioning towards a new, more sustainable growth model and endeavouring to build a knowledge economy and society grounded on education and R&D. The country has presently embarked on an ambitious reform of the education sector, underlining the culture of effort, and fundamentally aimed at raising efficiency and quality of education. HE Gustavo de Aristegui, Ambassador of Spain to India, shares his insight with Shahid Akhter, ENN on the quantum changes aimed at strengthening instrumental knowledge, more competency-based learning approaches and adaptation of graduates to the workplace.

Fact File

>>Six Spanish Universities are in the World University ranking 100 under 50 published by the Times Higher Education in 2013. Furthermore,three Spanish Business Schools, IE, IESE and ESADE are amongst the world top 20 in the MBA ranking.

>>Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world after Mandarin Chinese and the primary, official or co-official language of 21countries.

>>The Spanish University system has been the preferred destination for postgraduate students and researchers from Latin America, and Spain is also the 3rd country in the world with most students from the United States

>>Spain ranks 4th in Europe in students with post-secondary education in scientific and technical areas. It has gone from playing a minor role in the international science scene (ranked 30th in the early 80s) to become 10th scientific power in the world and 5th in the EU in 2011.

>>A report by the European Commission reveals that 39,300 Erasmus students came to study in Spain in the 2011-12. This puts Spain ahead of France (28,964), Germany (27,872) and the UK (25,760).

>>Granada University received more exchange students than any other in Europe in 2011-12. Four other Spanish institutions – Madrid’s Computense University, Seville University, Valencia University and Valencia Polytechnic – were in the top 10.

What are the educational changes taking place in Spain?
Aware of some weaknesses of the Spanish education model, the Government has put forward a new Draft Constitutional Law to improve Education quality (Spanish acronym: LOMCE). The future legislation aims at strengthening instrumental knowledge, making education more flexible and providing education centres a greater degree of autonomy. A new system of external evaluations at the end of each cycle of education has been proposed, so as to evaluate student learning and hence be able to adapt it and adjust the demand for higher education studies to the possibilities of supply. It is essential to reinforce the links between education and employment, and pointing to that direction, the new legislation strives to foster and modernise vocational training, making it better oriented and more focussed on employability. I feel private companies should work closer with the education sector with the common objective of training and adapting graduates to the workplace.
Any special provision that refers to foreign languages and the role of ICT?
Teaching of English as a foreign language in Spain starts earlier than in other EU and OECD countries. The new legislation will entitle the Government to define in consultation with the Autonomous Regions the bases for multilingual education. Larger use of ICT in the education sector will be promoted by expanding the concept of classroom in space and time, creating virtual learning environments, and thus, promoting e-learning education system.
Spain has the highest secondary school dropout rate in Europe. What educational reforms are going to be introduced to tackle this?
Yes indeed, this is of utmost concern to the Government, and that is why the profound reform of the whole education system in Spain is considered urgent and fundamental. Few of the proposed reforms are to: Anticipate to an earlier moment first election of students between academic and vocational training. European countries with lower school dropout rates allow students to opt for academic or vocational training before the age of 16. Foster and modernise Vocational Training. Introduction of external evaluations throughout the country at the end of each cycle of education. Improve Personal counseling to students in primary, secondary and transition between education cycles.
The Spanish government claims to be working on the improvement of education quality but at the same time introduced severe cuts in education. How do you intend to achieve positive changes?

Fact File

Certain performance indicators of Spain’s education model such as high exam failure rateand levels of school drop-out ,have drawn the attention of the Government to some weaknesses of the system, and asa result inspired the new Draft Constitutional Law to improve Education Quality

As per the PISA results in 2009, Spain scored 481 points, 12 points below the OECD average; results were worse than in 2000, when Spain scored 493 points. These negative results have been produced in spite of the investment in education standing far higher than the OECD and EU averages.
Spain allocates 10,094 dollars per year of public expenditure per student in public education, 21 percent higher than the OECD and EU average; investment has doubled in the last decade from 27 billion to 53 billion euros. As per the latest figures available for 2011 public spending in education in Spain stood at 50,714.2 million euros, representing a 4.77 percent of the GDP. Reduction in the school dropout rate and improvement in vocational training of young people are the main objectives of the European Social Fund and hence, this could be counted as one funding source for the implementation of the new Education Act.

“The impact of the current global economic crisis has affected Spanish economy and thus, the country is reinventing itself and transitioning towards a new, more sustainable growth model. We are endeavouring to build a knowledge based economy and society solidly grounded on education, competitiveness and R&D”

Please share the MoUs between Spain and India in the field of research, innovation and higher education?
Collaboration in STI between Spain and India is gaining momentum, having been lately a very important area of understanding between both countries. Spain has entered into alliances with different Indian R&D funding agencies, namely the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology, and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy with the objective to promote and finance academic and industrial research and technology development co-operation projects between research centres, universities and companies of both countries.
On the scientific co-operation front and since 2010, 43 joint research proposals in areas such as renewable energy ICT, health and medical research and nanotechnology between Spanish and Indian research groups have been selected for funding and are generating short visits and exchanges.
Similarly during the period 2012- 2013 under the innovation-driven programmes a total of 7 joint projects have been selected for funding in biotechnology, renewable energy and manufacturing technologies.
Collaborations between universities from both countries are gradually increasing in number and importance. Few examples are: Ongoing collaboration between Alliance 4 Universities of Spain and a consortium of 6 leading Indian educational institutions (IIIT Bangalore, IIsC Bangalore, NIT Hamirpur, IIFT New Delhi, Birla Institute of Management and Technology and the Jaypee Education Foundation) for internationalisation of higher education.
Research Excellence Programme of the Universidad Santiago de Compostela, Spain (USC) – India (PEIN).
Post-doc, professors and researchers exchanges between Universidad Rovira i Virgil, Spain, IIT Madras, and Anna University.
There is an MBA scholarship programme of Fundación La Caixa, Spain and Casa Asia for Spanish nationals interested in pursuing MBA studies at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. Recently a new agreement for exchange programmes between the School of Economics and Business Administration (IESE), University of Navarra, Spain and the Institute of Management and Technology Ghaziabad has been concluded. Another example is the collaboration between the University of Valladolid, Spain and the University of Ahmedabad in tourism and heritage management. S&T co-operation and Higher Education exchanges are registering an exponential growth. I am fully convinced that in the coming years they are called to become an essential pillar in our bilateral relations with India.

Cyber security & Algo Trading Most Happening Careers in the Field of Management & IT

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September 5, 2013

The ongoing process of globalisation has made it imperative for us to encourage the development of new talent in myriad areas of IT. There now exists an immense need for professionals who can contribute by making the IT system secured without compromise on efficiency.
EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consultants) is one of the world’s largest certification bodies for information security professionals. EC-Council is a member-based organisation that certifies individuals in various information security and e-business skills.
India is unlikely to meet the target of creating a workforce of more than 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years due to lack of infrastructure and investment, an official of security firm EC-Council said.
Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council said that the country is lagging behind in its fight in cyber warfare that has adopted innovative ways to attack governments and organisations causing huge financial losses.

Career in cyber security

• The Prime Minister’s Office has approved a plan to spend ` 1,000 crore over the next four years to bolster the country’s defense against cyber attacks
• India is unlikely to meet the target of creating a workforce of more than 5,00,000 cyber security professionals in next five years
• Indian needs 5 lakh cyber security professionals by 2015

The Prime Minister’s Office has approved a plan to spend `1,000 crore over the next four years to bolster the country’s defense against cyber attacks, according to a person familiar with the development. The Plan, which entails setting up of new agencies and coordination cells to improve response to cyber threats, is awaiting Cabinet Committee’s clearance, the person said.
At an event, Cyberfort Technologies, President, Amit Kumar pointed out that China is estimated to have 25 million cyber security experts while 1.25 lakh are from the local government. The US has 91, 080 experts in the government while India has just 556 experts.
“While the data points show that we are losing the fight, it is clear that the solution to the plague will happen when we will inject the vaccine. It is evident that the best way to solve the cyber plague is by introducing a cyber-vaccine programme at all levels of society through combative education plans,” added Jay Bavisi.
He said that the US, which has put in a lot of resources to create cyber security professionals, sees an annual growth of 15 percent in trained workforce.

Career in Algo Trading

• Algo Trading uses computer driven algorithms to decide which stocks to buy and sell
• Offers Opportunities for candidates with Engineering and Computer Science backgrounds
• Professionals Start at Rs 15- 20 lakh per annum
• Rosy Future as Algorithmic trading could account for 60- 70 percent of tradingin equity markets in next 3-4 years
Source: BT Research

“There is a need to involve academia like universities, impart training, setup labs and foster competition to deal with cyber security issues, which are entirely missing in the country,” highlighted Amit.
India is ranked ninth on Kaspersky’s list of countries with the highest percentage of computer attacks. However, the number of cyber security professionals in the country is very low.
Many government websites are still exposed to threats as proper investment has not been made to find a long-term solution. This has lead to security breach of government data and record. According to official data, more than 1,000 government websites were hacked in the last three years.
“When a government website is getting hacked they call professionals to fix the problem. But they have no budget to continue. They have no budget to hire the right people, to train them and defend their websites,” Amit said.
Cyberfort Technologies points out the recent study that revealed 5.39 million local malware threats were detected on computers in India. According to the organisation, India is lagging behind in its fight in cyber warfare. Any attack will result in financial loss, no matter how sophisticated the attack is.
On the government’s Cyber Security Policy 2013, Amit said the policy seems to be great on papers, but there should be greater focus on the implementation. While on the Indian cyber security awareness, he commented that the country needs 5 lakh cyber security professionals by 2015. In line with this requirement, Cyberfort Technologies will train through its channel partner 1000 cyber expert professional to combat the need of cyber professional.
Algo trading is another lucrative career in now days. It is going to swipe the entire market and help in creating entrepreneur professionals as well as white collar workers for banking and other diversified sector.
Cyberfort technologies has tied up with Modrika for providing niche financial technology equipped with ample job opportunites in the upcoming days. Algo trading is an automated facility where trading is carried out by computer driven algorithms designed by traders. Instead of the traders manually doing so, it is these algorithms that determine which orders – to buy or to sell – get booked. The high speed transactions can take as little as 18 microseconds – at which such trading takes place, gives it a competitive advantage over conventional manual trading. While a single trader can manually handle at best a portfolio of around Rs 5 crore, an algo trader, working alone, can cope with Rs 50 crore to Rs 55 crore
Algo trading started in India in 2005, but it was only in 2008 this facility started gaining wide acceptance after the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allowed Direct Market Access, or electronic interaction with the order books of exchanges. Today, around 16 to 17 per cent of trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange is algorithmic, with about 80 to 90 companies engaged in it. But many believe that in the next three to four years, the proportion could rise to 60 to 70 per cent.
“We have a six-month certificate course. So far, 500 candidates have enrolled,” says Vipin Kumar, Head of India operations of financial technology solutions provider Modrika.
dA broad range of brokerage firms, investment services, financial consulting firms, foreign and private banks, global insurance companies, taxation service providers, equity firms and other banking companies now expanding their operations across the globe. For young candidates there are bright lucrative opportunities in the fields of financial advisory services, insurance and banking services, investment management, financial analysis, stock-market consultants, broking agents, financial planners and economists. Over a million jobs in financial sector available by 2020 in India alone, as per report by Mc Kinsey has done for GIFT.
Modrika is primarily training and technology solutions provider for capital markets, and has been operating internationally for over half a decade. We provide technology driven wealth management solutions. We develop custom software and financial market technical analysis systems for financial technology firms, retail brokers, market makers, exchanges and individual trades. Leveraging nearshore or offshore outsourcing allows our clients to optimise project budget, reduce expenses and minimise both fiscal and organisational goals.

For establishment of cyberfort study
center contact – Dr Rajesh Kumar
Mobile- +91 9031489275, 9973195996
email-rajesh@cyberfort.org

Working to achieve the goal of skilling 50 crore Indians by 2022: Pallam Raju

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September 5, 2013

New Delhi: While addressing the sixth Global Skills Summit (GSS), the Human Resource Development Minister, Dr M M Pallam Raju said “we are working toward achieving national goal of skilling 50 crore Indians by 2022”.

He also added that a larger challenge at hand is to engage the youth of the country to participate in developing skills without inhibitions.

The two-day FICCI annual event was recently organised in collaboration with Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) , Ministry of Labour and Employment and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). New Zealand was the country partner this time for the Summit. The theme of the sixth GSS is “Industry Leads”.

The Minister said that the MHRD has structured the programmes in such a way that the private sector and industry would play a leadership role and an enabling environment would be provided for skill development. The Ministry is keen to have Industry as partners in setting up schools, skill development centres, polytechnics, community colleges and even provide skill programmes in colleges and cniversities. It is even exploring the opportunity to promote skill development in existing educational institutions, he added.

The Minister further added that the need of the hour is to synergise the efforts and resources to provide a feasible platform for vocational education and skill development. It demands a collective effort by varied government initiatives, PPP initiatives to set up schools and training institutes, National Skills Qualification Framework and large and small scale private players. Recently National Skills Development Agency (NSDA) has been formed which would be coming out with a National Skill Qualification Framework.

He elucidated a number of facts and figures which show that Indian Economy needs a strong skill training system if it is to survive the economic competition and reap the demographic dividend: a) The National Manufacturing Policy envisions to create over 10 crore additional jobs by 2022: b) Total employment in the unorganized sector is expected to be about 42 crore; c) welders, operators, plumbers, masons, crane operators, carpenters and electricians, the incremental requirement at the level of other construction workers is expected to be over 3.8 crore till 2022; d) drivers, helpers, and warehouse workers will together account for over 85 per cent of the incremental human resource requirements of the Transport and Warehousing sector.

Two reports were also released by the HRM on this occasion – Reaping India’s promised demographic dividend- Industry in driving seat and India New Zealand Partnership on Skills. The first report highlights the vocational education and training scenario (VET) of India. It also outlines concrete recommendations that can be taken up by respective State Skill Development/ Employment Missions for perceptible improvement in programme delivery in a time-bound manner.

Transformation of Distance Education with WizIQ

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September 5, 2013

“WizIQ is the best online virtual learning environment equipped with features designed for one-onone, group and class interactions. One does not need to download any special software for using WizIQ. It is absolutely user friendly and comfortable for teachers to conduct online classes,” Prof Mandar Bhanushe, IDOL, University of Mumbai

The Beginning
Treading on the path of innovative transformation of distance education by tapping the revolutionist nature of technology is Professor Mandar Laxmikant Bhanushe. With a double masters in Mathematics and a PG Diploma in Operation Research, all from University of Mumbai, and currently working as the Assistant Professor-cum-Assistant Director in the Institute of Distance Learning (IDOL) of the University of Mumbai (UoM), Prof Bhanushe has nine years of rich academic experience.

“The WizIQ team not only provided support but relentlessly maintained interactions with me and my team at IDOL,” Hemlata Chari, Deputy Director Academic, IDOL, University of Mumbai

The Change
One of the chief initiators of mobile learning project for First Year B Sc students of the University, Prof Bhanushe has conducted and organised several workshops. Currently in progress is his major project to create mobile educational apps for android.
He has initiated the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube as a tool for learning for the students of IDOL, UoM for various courses.
He has also pioneered the initiation of online lectures for the first time ever in the University, for courses in Mathematics as well as Artificial Intelligence, via the WizIQ Virtual Classroom.

The Award
Recognizing his efforts to make learning more easily accessible to the distance learning students, Indian Education Congress 2013 awarded Professor Mandar Bhanushe with the Indian Education Award 2013 for his online course in Mathematics {for Second year BSc(IT) course} in the Best Webinar Series category.

The Now
Professor Bhanushe continues to play his dynamic role as an ambassador for change. Understanding the need of the hour to adopt the 21st century pedagogies in Indian Education, Prof Bhansuhe has helped design the model for Open learning with his education webinar series. The award winning, live webinars are conducted via the WizIQ virtual classroom. Learners attend these sessions from anywhere, from the comfort of their study or office. It’s a unique opportunity for learners in India, where knowledge transfer is rare or comes at a very high cost. Imagine a high school teacher sitting in Boston and learning from an expert in Banaras.

The Technology
With WizIQ coming into picture in 2006, establishing an e Teaching Business in India, meeting students online in real time for virtual classes/webinars, teaching asynchronously through tutorials and online assessments, is no more a distant dream. WizIQ Virtual Classroom aims to democratise education too in the largest democracy of the world. More premier institutes like IITs, VIT Vellore, ISB, ISM Dhanbad and NIOS are opting for integration of Information and Communications Technology in higher education. And with WizIQ being almost infinitely scalable, the education sector in India is undergoing a paradigm shift.

The shrinking world

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September 5, 2013

“With technology penetrating in the remotest areas, people understand the need of connectivity. Therefore the acceptance of technology among the citizens is increasing,” says P Krishnakumar, Executive Director & GM, Consumer and Small Business, Dell India. In conversation with Sruti Ghosal

How do you look at the role of technology in the growth of education sector in India?
We should look at it from the perspective of technology, how evolutionary technology is playing a part. We should also look at people who have access to good quality education and people who don’t. The way the education system is spread across the country it enables a child to learn a lot of things on his own. But at the same time it doesn’t enhance the curiosity of the child, it does not enhance the abilities that a child possesses. But today we have the Internet, which allows the child to be curious about exploring the world. A lot of children in Tier-1, Tier-2, Tier-3 cities and becoming aware of what is going on around the globe and are not confined to their cities. They are not restrained by the knowledge that the teachers have. Therefore, from the teaching perspective as well as from the teacher’s side, technology has bridged the gap that was causing a hindrance in access to quality information. The second part is that few people in the Tier-3 and Tier- 4 cities have access to information, but not the right kind of education, which will actually help them achieve their dreams. If we see the penetration in Indian household, its only 7 to 8 percent as compared to the developed countries. Therefore, we as a country are not harnessing the potential of the child. In Dell our vision is to deliver technology that will enable a child to dream and emerge as the future leader. Last year, we launched a programme called Study Buddy through which we have over 300 schools. We invited students from these schools for an interactive session with the computer and thus giving them an opportunity to explore.

Please shed light on Dell Champs 2013 School Programme.
The Dell Champs School Programme was launched recently, where we invited 20 cities, purely Tier-2 and below. Here we are running a city school-level contest, which focuses on students from class V to XII. In this contest, children and parents participate as a team and from each school we pick up two winners. After the contest is over we are carrying out an interactive session where we will be discussing about the usage of Internet and the safety issues. This interactive session is purely from the parental perspective and this also educates them about the pros and cons of Internet usage. After this, we pick up a champion from each city and take up to the national level where the national winner is given a scholarship amount of ` 25,000. The winning school will get a customised computer lab. That is the way we have broadly structured the programme and through this we will be able to help the students to achieve their dreams.

“As we go to the Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities we find that the Internet penetration has reached up to 34 percent and most of the Internet activity is happening through the mobile devices”

Indian education is an $85 billion opportunity for business. How is Dell tapping into this vertical?
Education as a vertical looks into two parts, private education system and government education system. Private education can be further divided into college and school education. Most of the private colleges have already started implementing distance classrooms and have put technology in the forefront. They have implemented projectors and other electronic devices through which they can conduct these virtual classrooms, and Dell which produces projectors, laptops and other devices has played a vital role in making these implementations successful. But in the public sphere we have less participation, as government decision is a time consuming and lengthy process.

How do you customise products as per the requirement of education verticals?
It varies from institution to institution. If an institution has laptop requirements we can give it. There are a lot of institutions that want to set up their own data centres; in that case we have to look at different aspects like connectivity, feasibility etc. Therefore these are large scale projects in which we work with them and therefore we talk to them internally. So we can customise that depending on the requirements of the institutions.

What were the initial hiccups when you approached the institutions?
The institutions themselves wanted technology, but the most important factor is how the students will seize this technology. We have come up with different levels of power which makes it more accessible to the students and gives a better learning experience. Nowadays technology has grasped the entire community and is now approved across the society. So in Dell our motive is to help students explore the world of quality information through technology and not remain stuck with the stereotype and traditional notions of technology.

Global Discovery Academy Changing the Way of Imparting Education

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September 5, 2013

Foundation Concept
Take a group of global Indians that are prospering in their adopted countries, add a generous dose of burning passion to give back in a substantial way to India, stir in some of the best minds in education worldwide, and throw in a dash of some of the most cutting-edge innovations in education. Let the dish marinate for half a decade, and then flash fry it in the ground reality of actually operating in India. What you get is the Global Discovery Academy network of schools.
These successful graduates from the world’s best known universities and holding senior positions in the corporate world were passionate about shaping the future of Indian education.
The founders dreamed of schools that would serve the masses rather than classes. It took substantial research for the Global Discovery Academy to join the dots on these seemingly incompatible goals. This included benchmarking against some of the best school systems in the world.
The GDA Process
The USP of Global Discovery Academy is that they aspire to help children discover their strengths and play to them for the rest of their lives. Doing this well, even on a small scale, is challenging. GDA is attempting to do this for 400 schools pan India. A medical metaphor is followed in how this is achieved. The dominant strengths of each student (Diagnosis) are observed, a development trajectory for them (Intervention) is chalked out and their progress on that trajectory (Monitoring) is continuously checked.
“The innovation that GDA offers is in our pedagogy, our learning space design, our technology and finally, in the way we brand the entire product,” says Vipul Redey, Chief Product Officer, GDA.
“As far as quality teachers are concerned, we draw a lot of our inspiration from the Rocketship Education model for running schools in the US. We hire the best, train them thoroughly, give them quality mentoring and performance feedback continuously, reward them for outstanding work, and show them a long term personal growth trajectory,” he adds.
The technology used by our instructors includes Smart boards, prototyping tools, educational software to teach Mathematics and foreign languages. GDA’s Technology & Entrepreneurship Lab initiative will offer our students a multitude of avenues to pursue their interests through the effective use of technology, whether it is in the creative arts or in commerce or in solving a specific multi-faceted problem that intrigues them.
We have been offering a few certified needy students with the assistance to bridge the gap between what we charge and what they can afford. However, with the low standard fees, this is usually unnecessary as we make sure that the fee charged from a student stays highly affordable.
At GDA the basic CBSE curriculum confirms to the CCE standards. However, we have an additional remediation layer on top of it called Aha Packet by us to teach
• Difficult topics
• Foundation topics and
• Extra-curricular topics like those related to technology, entrepreneurship or other careers.
With the changing times the role and responsibility of the teacher has also undergone a drastic change. This can best be illustrated by how we use the reputed Khan Academy Mathematics model that turns the traditional role of teachers on it’s head – Students learn concepts by watching Khan Academy videos and then practice problems under the watchful eye of their teachers in class. This makes teachers infinitely more useful and effective as facilitators for APPLYING knowledge rather than being a person that offers a sterile administering of meaningless data.
The entire GDA education hinges around our “Roadmap to my Dreams” philosophy that seeks to ensure that every child plays to his or her strengths throughout their lives. This involves, first of all identifying that child’s strengths, accentuating them through our unique education process and then monitoring the child’s progress.

Education Management with ERP

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

September 5, 2013

Razi Ahmed, Country Manager / CEO – India, Edmatix Information Systems, a subsidiary of Mazik Tech Solutions, talks about how the company is helping educational institutions to achieve their academic goals by removing the artificial barriers between parents, teachers and students

Please shed some light on Edmatix Solutions.
Edmatix is the education ERP division of Mazik Tech solutions which provides multi lingual educational solutions and services. Our products are built on latest Microsoft, Web 2.0 technologies to make it more user friendly and cater the education needs of various school boards such as state SSC, CBSE, ICSE and several others that exists in India it also caters colleges, training institutes and universities.

How is Edmatix helping Education Institutions across India?
Edmatix is helping education industry achieve their academic goals and set standards. We are totally committed to helping education community; reinvent education system to improve their education standards and student achievements to outperform in several state and central aptitude tests. Our education products are designed to help you support the lifecycle of active learning, inspires student success and create technology enabled environment. Our products are built to allow seamless customizations to meet the needs of every school in the education community.
Edmatix has been committed to providing the best software solutions for education industry and helping schools maintain their competitive edge with their counter parts in the education market. Our mission is to provide schools a very comprehensive, easy to use and most cost effective solutions. We help schools and institutions to achieve their education goals by improving education standard, student grades, achievements and ofcourse achieve their target revenues to help them expand their services. Improvement in student grades and education standards will help schools to send more students to colleges and universities where they can be selected for the most demanding courses and programs to support Indian growth in technology and sciences.

Edmatix is helping education industry achieve their academic goals around the world. It helps management to easily manage various entities of their institutes in 360 degree view using MIS reports, Teacher analysis, Student analysis and many canned reports

Key achievements

• 65 + satisfied customer Groups with a volume of 1,00,000 + Users
• ITIL Process based Customer Service Support
• Supports International and Local curriculum pattern (State, CBSE, ICSE, IB etc)
• User friendly and Microsoft Certified User Interface (UI) design
• Integrated with various Financial Accounting ERPs such as Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Tally

Key implementation challenges

• Collecting Data as per Standard Education System-overcome using ‘Custom-made’ Data Migration Tools
• The communication between User-Implementation Team – Educating Users to Communicate Using e-mail approach
• Implementing SaaS Model – Educating The Customer about Data Security and Advantages of SaaS Model

How do you manage support to existing customers when you are adding schools almost every week?
Along with our local support, we are constantly monitoring the industry and working with our customers who are driving the functionality of our software. We are committed to exceeding our customer’s expectations. We completely understand that the software you buy today needs to last for decades, grow and adapt with your school’s changing needs and requirements. We follow a strict change management and control for every release of each new enhancement. Our implementation and support teams are very well connected with all our customers, they keep all customers very well informed about our new features and enhancement to existing features in our releases. We believe in training our customers that to reduce the number support calls that we receive and help us use our valuable time to further build the software. We value each of our customers irrespective of their size and revenue.

Nurturing School Leaders of Tomorrow

By

digitalLEARNING Network

-

September 5, 2013

The session highlighted organisational leadership and management skills for principals. It also threw new perspectives on the role that ICT can play in school management

Swami Swaroopananda,
Director In-Charge,
Chinmaya International Residential School, Coimbatore

Leadership is something that people say is inborn. Yet all are not born leaders and yet everyone is leader in their own space. Best leadership is always through example. To create leaders out of people all we have to do is make them people of some values. People find something in them which they are inspired by. Common answer given by students on asking as what they are missing in the education system is that they do not have role models. It became a task that at least that they look up to their parents and teachers as role models. It has become a challenge to make teachers as role model. We began to empower people in order to make them leaders. Recognising the talent and allowing them to express freely whatever they are good at. Discipline, which is self-developed, is always constructive.

A Murali Mukund, Chairman, Jubilee Public School, Hyderabad

A good institution should have four things those are vision, strong leadership, good teacher effectiveness and good student learning. A good teacher need not be a good school leader but a good school leader essentially has to be a good teacher. A School leader should have a clear vision to lead the staff, to implement the management policies for delivery of quality education to the children. Passion and commitment are two key aspects to become a good leader. Teacher, trainer and team leader are the key roles of a leader.

Dr Kiran Singh, Principal, Mandsaur International School, Mandsaur

Nurturing the future leaders in such a way that they get enough time and space to cultivate the values and required qualities to pass it on to the next generation. We need to reduce the gaps between school and parents, parents and teachers and students and teachers. Leadership is an action not a title. It is a promise, which we make to the people. HR development is very important aspect in nurturing leadership.

Sameer Bora, EVP, Research & Development, Next Education

Digital learning has to blend with conventional way of learning. It is not a substitute to conventional learning. We look at the teachers as catalysts and we do not seek to replace teachers when we are designing tools. Educational data mining is an important activity, which helps in making big decisions regarding students. It is important to figure out how the teacher views the technology. It can not be the case that you built a technology and force teacher to a very steep learning curve, which makes them uncomfortable in front of the class. Content must be such that the teacher must add value rather than replacing teachers.

Dr Nripen Kumar Dutta,Founder and Principal, Miles Bronson Residential School, Guwahati

There is a transformational change over the last 20 years because of the technological change, innovation, globalisation, migration, the landscape of school has changed where the old model of administrative style has been replaced by the new public management style of learning. A paradigm shift from that of intervention to prevention is happening. This shift has made the role of principals different, which is based on action and behaviour. Instructional leadership has become more relevant. Old system and new system can blend and club together in attaining goals. Teacher quality, rigour of content and students as learners are the core of the system and there should be an interaction in the system.

Lt Col (Retd) A Sekhar, Principal, Atul Vidyalaya, Valsad

The need of the hour is to enhance the role of teachers in the teaching process. We have to provide them better education and better tools to enable them to bring further improvement in the teachinglearning process.

Shivananda R Koteshwar, Director, The Amaatra Academy, Bangalore

Leadership is all about getting into a state of a resonance. With resonance I mean that gets created when staff’s aspiration, institute’s requirement and learner’s interest intersect. This state of resonance is a real leadership. Difference between a manager and a leader is that manager says go and the leader says lets go, which means the leader is involved in things. Manger knows how to do things where as leader knows what things to do. The manager gets others to do and the leader gets others to want to do. A principal requires a coach, a structured plan and absolute management support for implementation of planning

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