This Solar Powered device is making classrooms very interesting in rural Maharashtra

Solar power in rural Areas Maharashtra

There is immense talent in Indians and the entire world knows it. May it be the Budgeted Mars mission or the famous “Jugaads” made out of nothing, or being the first country to find water traces on Moon, it is simply exceptional display of intelligence on our part. If Indians get the opportunity and proper guidance, we can rule the world. This recent story has proved this point.

The latest invention is a simple solar operated device made for helping the students in rural Maharashtra for accessing the interesting multimedia content. It draws its energy directly from the Sun and doesn’t require any prior training or knowledge of Computers.

All this started in the beginning of 2014, when two graduates from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), Mumbai have decided to explore the education sector and do something different for helping the society and rural India.

One of the two inventors, Leher Tawde says, “It was the beginning of 2014. Lavin and I had been in our jobs for three years. Both of us felt that while our jobs were good and comfortable, they were not challenging enough. Moreover, they were not having any impact on society in any way. So we decided to explore other sectors where there is scope for change via technology and work in one of them.” He is a Business Administration graduate from NMIMS.

Solar power in rural Areas

“Everybody knows that the rural education system in India is not perfect. Both of us are products of the urban education system and while we knew that schools in our villages generally needed reforms, we did not know what the exact problems were,” he added.

He said that they did some research work for almost 6 months. They figured that the Government school teachers in rural areas of Maharashtra need some skill development to improvise them to use technology for an improved classroom teaching.

By the end of 2014, they resigned from their jobs and started ConnectEd Technologies, an education-technology company whose aim was to produce and provide tailor-made various sorts of educational content for underprivileged kids through technology.

The flagship product of ConnectEd technologies is a smart classroom system which operates on battery and helps the teachers in the teaching process by using the audio-visual content. Basically, it is a high-definition projector running on solar energy. The best thing about this projector is that it is very simple to use and those people who don’t know how to operate computers could also operate it easily.

As far as the working of the device is concerned, just switch on the device, navigate and play the audio-visual file which corresponds to what the teacher is teaching in the class.

The 25-year-old Lehar said, “The video for each chapter is about 12-15 minutes long. The teachers can either play the entire film and discuss the chapter with students or keep pausing it to guide students through the topic. Conventionally, teachers spend the entire time in class delivering lectures. With videos, they get the opportunity to make classes more engaging and exciting.”

This product is currently being featured in Palghar district of Maharashtra, and now is also being used in other areas too. The software of this projector is right now compatible for classes 5 to 10, with the future planning of introducing more levels to it.

In 2016, ConnectEd has started a combined campaign EkShiksha with the assistance of Education Ministry of Maharashtra for making the product available to the outskirts of Maharashtra. This company has a team of 27 people working for strengthening the root of quality education to the students of rural areas. ConnectEd is a self-funded company.

For knowing the results of their products, the company organizes assessment tests for students to know the improvement in the learning outcomes. They already conducted a baseline test in Palghar for testing the results as of now.

“We have been receiving feedback from teachers that the product helps them improve the learning environment in class. Earlier, teachers would just read to the children from books in the class. Delivering lectures too was not very helpful. But the video content corresponds with what they are going to teach in class and children love it too,” says Lehar.

This initiative is very commendable and appreciative as only education can fill up the gaps between rich and poor in the society and contribute towards the actual development of the society.

Advertisement

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here