Date: 21/03/2012

$45 Tablet-like computer designed by U.S. based Indian Prof. is offered to AP students

Tablet computer-like PC called I-slate created by Krishna Palem, a professor at both Rice University of U.S. and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore is selected by Government officials in Andhra Pradesh for use by secondary school students in the district of Mahabubnagar. This was announced in Hyderabad, India, by district officials, the Indian non-profit Villages for Development and Learning Foundation (ViDAL), Rice University and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. The tablet PCs were delivered this month to Mohamed Hussainpalli Village School. Consortium leaders and Mahabubnagar officials said they hope to supply I-slates to at least 10 percent of the students over the next three years.

The I-slate is joint development effort by the I-slate Consortium, which includes hardware and software experts at Rice and NTU, social outreach partners from ViDAL and a Los Angeles-based design team.

"The I-slate project is about empowering local communities with education and knowledge," said Rajeswari Pingali, ViDAL founding chairwoman. "Based on two years of lab-to-school testing rounds, today we have a fully functional I-slate which will be adapted by the district education department for expanding the footprint of technology and bringing learning opportunities backed by the latest in modern communication technology for the benefit of rural communities."

These tablets are said to feature a new "sense-optimized" user interface designed to improve educational outcomes in rural India. Sense optimization is a systematic way of improving the user experience by taking advantage of our knowledge of how the human brain processes the information so we can invest the minimum amount of resources for the effectiveness level we're trying to reach, as per Krishna Palem. He adds "The I-slate is not a tablet computer. It is a device designed for a single purpose - education in a low-resource environment."

"Mahabubnagar is primarily rural and has a population of around 4 million. District officials plan to use the I-slate in middle and high school classrooms. With sufficient volume, the unit cost for the I-slate will be around $45 (56 Singapore dollars)," Krishna Palem said.

The developers which include Krishna Palem, Rice's Ken and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computing, found usability and effectiveness design challenges rather than power consumption.

Here is one innovative user interface stated in the release: The designers incorporated elements from video games and social networking to draw students in and hold their interest. For example, a colorful cartoon creature in the corner of the I-slate screen watches the student and changes expression based upon the child's actions. The more the student studies and the better her grades, the happier the creature appears.

The I-slate is a joint project of the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID). Mr. Palem directs ISAID.

Krishna Palem has also developed the low power semiconductor chip exclusively for this. The chip, which could be ready for use in the I-slate by 2013 is said to cut power requirements in half and allow the device to run on solar power

All this looks interesting development just like our own Aakash tablet PC, which was developed by IIT. Why not Krishna Palem's team find an Indian academic and industrial partner! The field proven Aakash tablet and this product can be merged for a better product. Aakash was developed in India, where the eco for electronics design and manufacturing is poor, even then Aakash is fairly successful already.
When India has an ambitious plan of having mega semiconductor fab, Krishna Palem and his team can leverage the effort of Department of IT, Government of India in building electronics products and making the technology affordable and intersting to rural masses.