India's Aakash tablet in US pilot projects - Economic Times

By: Prasanto K Roy After a few minutes on the Aakash, a five-year-old American kid proudly announced he had achieved Level 4 in an addition game. He'd started the day at Level 1. These poorer kids in North Carolina were already picking up skills they'd be learning in the next school year, which was unprecedented - they would usually start off the year at a disadvantage. The world's cheapest Made-in-India tablet, nicknamed Aakash (sky), had promised to transform Indian education. Instead, the government project got mired in delays and controversies in India. Meanwhile, the $50 Aakash tablet was creating a buzz in a dozen countries, and in the United Nations, where it was showcased last November. Now, the Aakash has just completed a pilot in the US state of North Carolina, with 100 units of the Android tablets deployed in summer camps for poorer schoolchildren (mostly under age 10) to help them prepare for next year's studies. And there are other projects under way, with 2,000 tablets - DataWind's Aakash-equivalent UbiSlate models - already deployed. The man behind the North Carolina pilot is software entrepreneur Chris Evans. After hearing about the Aakash from Valley-based entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, Evans agreed to fund 100 tablets for the American non-profit Communities in Schools (CIS), which was running the summer camps in North Carolina. Evans is on the board of CIS. "(The richer kids) were already using smartphones and tablets at school," Evans says, "and I thought the Akash would be an affordable way to keep them in pace with their classmates and engaged with their studies." Wadhwa is an evangelist for low-cost tablets. He has written extensively in the Washington Post, ForeignPolicy.com, and elsewhere, about their potential to transform education. He also saw the Aakash "as a way to force US tablet prices to drop - bring in some competition from abroad". Along the way, Wadhwa spoke about the Aakash to Lotus Corp founder Mitch Kapor, Obama's former CTO Aneesh Chopra, and to others including Evans, to bring them on board for different projects involving the low-cost tablets. Copyright © 2013 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFFp-ygFsY9RbudxiTgYWTa8FSvng&url=http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/indias-aakash-tablet-in-us-pilot-projects/articleshow/21910734.cms

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