Welcome once again to Bits & Bytes. We have been very busy the past few months and the coming months augur increased enthusiasm and growth. By the end of 2007, the DE program will be a central part of the curriculum in 1500 schools across 13 states. Expansion plans include sustainable growth of 1000 additional new schools per year for the next five years, with a target of reaching at least 5000 schools by 2011! As we strive to implement a program of the highest quality and integrity, we are equally committed to building a strong team on the ground that will ensure effective strategies and execution. On that note, I am delighted to welcome on board, Manas Chakrabarti as Director, DE-India. Manas an engineer by education, has spent several years in industry, mainly with NIIT in both India and the United States. For the past few years, Manas was the head of Hole-in-the-Wall Education Ltd., an initiative of NIIT that literally put computers into holes in walls throughout slums and villages and allowed children to use their creativity and enterprise to learn and apply technology. Manas will be leading our program design and implementation in India. I encourage all of you - friends, supporters and partners of AIF - to connect with our DE team, here in the US and in India, share thoughts, and visit DE centers whenever possible, as we collectively take DE to greater heights.

Adobe Systems Incorporated and AIF are partnering to bring the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) program to 25 sites, both DE and non-DE, in the Bangalore and Delhi/Noida geographies over the 2007-2008 academic year. AYV is Adobe’s global philanthropic initiative that empowers youth worldwide to comment on their world using multimedia and digital tools to communicate and share their ideas, demonstrate their potential, and take action in their communities.  AYV supports programs in and out of the classroom that utilize the power of technology as part of the learning experience for middle-and high-school aged youth to enable them to think creatively, communicate effectively, and work collaboratively--critical 21st century skills.  AIF will be the primary vehicle for AYV's deployment in India and will be responsible for program implementation and management. This is an exciting opportunity for students to garner skills in youth-created media projects, including videos, documentaries, digital photography, photo journalism, animations, websites, and multimedia.

Click here to learn more about AYV.

Click here to view a short film created by DE students in AYV.

(This film just received an Honorable Mention at ListenUp.org's VIP 2007 contest.)

Several DE centers took part in iEARN’s national conference held May 2nd through 5th in Pune. Students and teachers from government, aided, and private schools as well as NGOs and independent participants from across India gathered to present their work and gain new ideas to take back to their own school environments. The theme of this year’s conference was WE ARE THE WORLD. 7 DE schools displayed special projects in animation, documentary filmmaking and photography – created as part of the Adobe Youth Voices program (AYV). Students and teachers were trained on specialized equipment for the development of these projects.

Click here to view a short clip created by one of our DE coordinators and presented at the iEARN conference.

More

Winners Selected in DE’s National Contest!

Winners were selected from 1,200 entries to the national DE contest - received from 211 DE schools across the country.  Through the course of completing their contest entries, students learned about an array of subjects from photosynthesis and geometry to petrol engines and water harvesting. This contest has become an annual feature of DE and has been a great motivator for students to work beyond their classroom requirements and showcase their work at the national level.  Entries were reviewed by a panel of AIF judges who selected final prize winners.  Winners were decided at the state level, and three schools were awarded special program-wide recognition.

Jamia Middle School (Delhi) won first place for a project on Environmental Pollution by Neha, Bushra, and Sualeha (7th grade). The students completed their project with the guidance of their teacher Miss Aisha Zaheer.         

Second place prizes were awarded to Sundatta High School (Mumbai), Sewa Sadan Society (Mumbai) and Cotton Hill High School (Trivandrum).

Click here to view the winning presentation

Convergys Corporation sponsors new DE center in Gurgaon, Haryana

Convergys Corporation has partnered with the American India Foundation to sponsor a new DE center in Gurgaon, Haryana. Ms. Birgit Neumann, Vice President, Customer Care Operations, inaugurated the Digital Equalizer Center on April 23rd at the Vedik Kanya Inter College, Gurgaon. The center will be fully operational from the new academic year starting July 2007. Ms.Birgit, in her address, spoke to the significance of technology in the present-day world and emphasized the importance of technology in education. Manas Chakrabarti, and Sundar Krishnan from the AIF-Delhi office also attended the event.

Applied Materials Inc., Silicon Valley Bank, the Deshpande Foundation and MPhasiS Limited (an EDS Company) have committed to support DE’s large-scale partnership with the Government of Karnataka and bring DE to 216 schools across the state in 2007. 

The New York Life Foundation will support large-scale expansion in Punjab and Rajasthan.  DE centers were launched in 200 schools across Punjab in 2006, and this year DE will rollout in an additional 400+ schools. To date, the DE program in Rajasthan has brought technology and training to 206 schools across the state.

HSBC has signed on to support our large-scale partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, which will bring DE to 60 schools across the state.

We also welcome Samarth Foundation and Kaval Kaur and Jasvir Gill to our family of Trustees! Samarth Foundation has committed resources towards our large-scale partnerships in Karnataka and for full-service centers in Bangalore and Delhi.  Kaval Kaur and Jasvir Gill have pledged their support to our large-scale expansion in Punjab.

Staff Announcements:

A letter from a DE teacher:

As I watched Reshma and Trupti standing at the front of the room, educating the class about “Gender Disparity in India” and the “U.N. Millennium Development Goals”, I felt a sense of accomplishment unlike any I had ever known. These were the PowerPoint slides for a presentation they were to deliver during the iEARN International Conference in the Netherlands – a foreign country, many worlds away.

Through DE’s collaboration with iEARN, I had traveled to Japan and Slovakia in years passed, which in itself was a tremendous achievement. But to take my students with me this year introduced a whole new dimension of self-accomplishment, both as a teacher and as an individual. To Reshma and Trupti, who thought a second class train-ride to a neighboring state was extravagant, flying abroad was a farfetched possibility.  The girls had earned this opportunity through countless hours in front of the computer preparing a sponsorship proposal for the Alice O. Education Institute. This proposal included an in-depth research report on the current state of gender disparity in India using qualitative surveys, as well as a comparative section examining social inequalities in Trinidad and Tobago. They competed in a highly selective process to showcase their academic abilities and they won. They will now be heard well beyond the walls of their classroom and the borders of their country. There are no longer any limits to what they can achieve. My heartfelt thanks to AIF and my school administration for making all of this possible.