The Hindu Business Line : Training school for rural digital knowledge connectivity launched

With the Right to Information Act in place, technology access to rural people will accelerate the reach of information in the villages, Mr Swaminathan said.

Ms D. Purandeswari

Advertisement

Coimbatore Feb. 18 The village knowledge centre programme for empowering rural India through digital technology access pursued by M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) today took its next step by launching the training school for rural leadership in digital knowledge connectivity.

The training school, named after the industrial doyen of the pre-Independent era Jamsetji Tata, will train fellows of the MSSRF's national virtual academy (NVA) for rural prosperity.

The academy also named after Jamsetji Tata and launched by the Foundation in 2003, will provide the demand-driven information to rural people for enhancing their livelihood by enabling them information, communication and technology access.

The Union Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Ms Purandeswari, formally launched the Jamsetji Tata Training School for leadership in rural knowledge connectivity at a function held at the Tamilnadu Agricultural University (TNAU) here in which members from various other organisations/institutions supporting the MSSRF's rural knowledge connectivity programmes took part.

Fellowship

The Union Minister also conferred the national virtual academy fellowships to 89 more men and women members who were newly admitted to the Academy in a ceremonial convocation held at the venue.

This is the fourth batch of the academy fellows from 20 different States across the country and with this, the total number has gone up to 458.

The Farm scientist and president of the academy, Dr M.S. Swaminathan described the fellows as `team India for a new India' as they will help bridge the growing urban-rural digital divide by seeking to achieve social inclusion in technology access. He expressed confidence that with the Right to Information Act in place, technology access to rural people will accelerate the reach of information for livelihood improvement in villages.

The launch of the training school was thought of meeting the demand from the academy fellows on the need for such training. Ms Tara Gandhi, advisor to NVA said the local hubs of knowledge centres created under the digital knowledge connectivity programme would offer training in areas of livelihood, health, education and bio-diversity.

The concept of virtual academy designed by the foundation to provide the four-way information connectivity between scientific institutions consortiums (laboratory-to-laboratory), between institutions and users (lab-to-land), between traditional rural knowledge base to technical experts (land-to-lab) and for lateral leaning between rural families (land-to-land). The foundation's rural knowledge centre programme enunciated under Mission 2007 has a number of supporting agencies, which among others include the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Swiss agency for Development and Cooperation, International Development Research, Microsoft and CIDA. Several institutional partners such as ISRO, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Nasscom are also associated with the programme

Prof V.N. Rajasekharan Pillai, Vice-Chancellor of the IGNOU, said his university had planned to make use of inputs from the academy fellows/village knowledge centres to identify core areas of media and communications for capacity building of village knowledge centres across the country.

More Stories on : Education | Rural Development | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page