1. Primary Education through Digital Slate and Telecom (PEDISTEL) Dr. Abhay Gandhi Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, NAGPUR 440010 INDIA asgandhi@ece.vnit.ac.in

2. Agenda Objectives Challenges Technology and features Budget and development plan

3. Objectives Development of low cost electronic slate with distance education capability. Development of complete distance education system using the electronic slate. To launch the education solution on a large scale.

4. Challenges No access to education for rural and tribal children. No school / school faraway / daily commuting not possible. Difficult access to quality education for urban slum dwellers. Children of migrant labour, construction workers do not stay at one place.

5. Challenges (Contd.) To provide infrastructure for a few people in each village is not economically feasible. Steady brain-drain from villages to cities over the last 6 decades. Talent pool that can teach better is concentrated in cities and towns. Teachers unwilling to stay in villages.

6. PEDISTEL - Technology

7. Digital Electronic Slate features       

8. Detachable solar panel Winding spring / animal or human power for battery charging. Touch screen, web-cam, speaker, mic Full duplex voice(ASVD or DSVD) or GPRS/3G/landline connectivity. E-book reader, video playback, drawing etc. Useful for higher education also.

9. Digital slate features (contd.) Ability to store off-line content for example home work. Minimum 3 hr use per day. Patent filed for the electronic slate. (Application no. 1625/MUM/2009 date: 10/07/2009)

10. Digital slate block diagram Camera Microphone Speaker Touch screen Power supply + Battery Application Specific Processor Flash Memory Internet connectivity (MODEM) Solar Panel Human / Animal driven generator LCD screen 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

11. Teacher’s setup Training software on Laptop/ Desktop PC Web-cam, tablet or touch screen. Display divided in nine parts to handle 9 students at a time. Contents on slate or student’s face shown in the window allocated.

12. Who will be teachers? 9:1 ratio means a large number of teachers required. College students (engg., medical, law, arts, science, commerce, pharmacy) Housewives, retired personnel Physically challenged persons

13. Team and resources VNIT- Department of Electronics, VLSI Lab A. S. Gandhi (Communications and overall solution development) Prof. R. M. Patrikar (VLSI issues) Ravindra B. Keskar (Web solution)

14. Team and resources MTech(VLSI Design), MTech(Computer Science) and BTech students. Currently, one engineer for hardware and one for software is proposed. Perhaps, the no. needs to be increased.

15. Budget (3 years) Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) I)Components procurement4,00,000 II)Assembly of demo units3,60,000 III)HDL environment7,00,000 IV)Testing equipment7,00,000 V)Web-based solution18,00,000 VI)Field testing and Concept testing10,00,000 VII)Salary of project engineers14,40,000 VIII ) Contingency, Consumables, Travel & Miscellaneous 6,00,000 Total:70,00,000

16. I)Components procurement Sr. no. ComponentEstimated cost (Rs.) 1Display or monitor panel 1,00,000 2Touch screen 20,000 3GSM/GPRS/Broadband modem 20,000 4Microphone and speaker unit with USB interface 10,000 5Camera with USB interface 20,000 6Memory, FPGA and other digital ICs 1,50,000 7USB 2.0 IP core licence 50,000 8Power supply circuit and battery 10,000 9Solar panel 20,000 Total: 4,00,000

17. II)Assembly of demo units Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) 1PCB layout design 60,000 2PCB fabrication 1,00,000 3Enclosure design 1,00,000 4Enclosure fabrication 1,00,000 Total: 3,60,000

18. III) HDL (Verilog) Environment Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) 1Code development 2,00,000 2Simulation tool 2,00,000 3FPGA Implementation System 3,00,000 Total: 7,00,000

19. IV) Testing Equipment Sr. no. EquipmentEstimated cost (Rs.) 1USB Protocol Analyzer 4,50,000 2Mixed Mode Digital Storage Oscilloscope 2,50,000 Total: 7,00,000

20. V) Web based solution Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) 1Web-server for education service provision 2,00,000 2Data base server for CRM solution 1,00,000 3Web application development tools 2,00,000 4Networking and Internet access equipment 4,00,000 5Tutor training and content development 9,00,000 Total: 18,00,000

21. VI)Marketing Methodology Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) 1Field testing 5,00,000 2Concept Testing 5,00,000 Total: 10,00,000

22. VII)Salary of project engineers Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) 1Hardware development engineer 7,20,000 2Software development engineer 7,20,000 Total: 14,40,000

23. VIII)Contingency, Consumables, Travel & Miscellaneous Miscellaneous Sr. no. ItemEstimated cost (Rs.) 1Contingency 1,50,000 2Consumables 1,50,000 3Travel 2,00,000 4 1,00,000 Total: 6,00,000

24. Recurring budget –year wise break up Manpower Sr. no. Item I yearII yearIII Year 1 Hardware development engineer 2,40,000 2 Software development engineer 2,40,000 Total 4,80,000

25. Recurring budget –year wise break up I yearII yearIII Year Miscellaneous Sr. no. Other recurring expenses 1Contingency 50,000 2Consumables 50,000 3Travel 1,00,00050,000 4 25,000 Total: 2,50,0001,75,000

26. Summary of recurring budget Item I yearII yearIII Year Manpower 4,80,000 Contingency 50,000 Consumables 50,000 Travel 1,00,00050,000 Miscellaneous 50,00025,000 Total: 7,30,0006,55,000

27. Financial outlay (year-wise) I Year II Year III Year Non recurring 21,60,00018,00,00010,00,000 Recurring 7,30,0006,55,000 Total:28,90,00024,55,00016,55,000

28. Business model and costing Target cost of digital slate Rs. 500 to 2500 (US$ 10 to 50). Possible due to large volumes. Franchisee model for urban area NGO+SHG for rural area Web based CRM solution.

29. Business model and costing NRE Cost (Development cost) Operational expenses –Teachers and support staff salary –Telephone usage charges –Devices (Students and Teachers) –Device loss, damage, maintenance.

30. Development plan I year: Prototype slate to be assembled, Verilog code to be ready. II Year: Web-based solution to be developed. Pilot project to be ready. III Year: Full deployment across the country.

31. Thank you!