India’s ministry in charge of higher education says it will make low-power laptops available, at a cost of just $10 apiece, to the Indian market within six months — as part of a major initiative to increase the number of students going to college, The Indian Express reports.
R. P. Agrawal, India’s secretary of higher education, told the newspaper that online courses are the only way to bring quality education to remote areas of the country. He added that the ministry is working out ways to beam lectures from the Indian Institute of Technology across the country. “We will be providing free e-content to students,” Mr. Agrawal said.
A prototype of the computer is expected to be unveiled next week. It will come with wireless Internet capability, expandable memory, and a variety of other features. The government has approached manufacturers like Intel about producing the devices, the ministry said. The prototype has been developed with the help of students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bangalore’s Indian Institute of Science, and the Vellore Institute of Technology, among others.
“The idea is to create a device which is very low-powered, so that it can work at two-watt range even in villages where electricity supply is a problem,” Mr. Agrawal told The Express. “Attempts are on to see how a solar-charged or dynamo-powered device can be developed.”
In 2006 the ministry decided not to buy the so-called “$100-laptop” developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The ministry’s technical experts questioned the design of those low-cost laptops and said the machines had high hidden costs that would bring the total price to $200 apiece, The Times of India reports. —Shailaja Neelakantan
