primary education through digital slate and telecom (pedistel)

Primary Education through Primary Education through Digital Slate and Telecom Digital Slate and Telecom

(PEDISTEL)(PEDISTEL)

Primary Education through Primary Education through Digital Slate and Telecom Digital Slate and Telecom

(PEDISTEL)(PEDISTEL)

Dr. Abhay GandhiDr. Abhay Gandhi

Visvesvaraya National Institute of Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, NAGPUR 440010 INDIATechnology, NAGPUR 440010 INDIA

asgandhi@ece.vnit.ac.inasgandhi@ece.vnit.ac.in

Agenda• Objectives• Challenges• Technology and features• Budget and development plan

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.

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.

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.

PEDISTEL - Technology

| | | | | |

Detachable Solar panel

Digital slate

Student’s device Teacher’s setup

Digital Electronic Slate features

Digital Electronic Slate features

• 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.

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)

Digital slate block diagram

Camera

Microphone

Speaker

Touch screen

Power supply + Battery

Application Specific

Processor

Flash Memory

Internet connectivity(MODEM)

Solar PanelHuman / Animal driven

generator

LCD screen

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

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.

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

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)

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.

Budget (3 years)Sr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

I) Components procurement 4,00,000

II) Assembly of demo units 3,60,000

III) HDL environment 7,00,000

IV) Testing equipment 7,00,000

V) Web-based solution 18,00,000

VI) Field testing and Concept testing 10,00,000

VII) Salary of project engineers 14,40,000

VIII) Contingency, Consumables, Travel & Miscellaneous

6,00,000

  Total: 70,00,000

I)Components procurement

Sr. no.

Component Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 Display or monitor panel 1,00,000

2 Touch screen 20,000

3 GSM/GPRS/Broadband modem 20,000

4 Microphone and speaker unit with USB interface

10,000

5 Camera with USB interface 20,000

6 Memory, FPGA and other digital ICs

1,50,000

7 USB 2.0 IP core licence 50,000

8 Power supply circuit and battery 10,000

9 Solar panel 20,000

  Total: 4,00,000

II)Assembly of demo units

Sr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 PCB layout design 60,000

2 PCB fabrication 1,00,000

3 Enclosure design 1,00,000

4 Enclosure fabrication 1,00,000

  Total: 3,60,000

III) HDL (Verilog) Environment

Sr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 Code development 2,00,000

2 Simulation tool 2,00,000

3 FPGA Implementation System 3,00,000

  Total: 7,00,000

IV) Testing Equipment

Sr. no.

Equipment Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 USB Protocol Analyzer 4,50,000

2 Mixed Mode Digital Storage Oscilloscope

2,50,000

  Total: 7,00,000

V) Web based solutionSr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 Web-server for education service provision

2,00,000

2 Data base server for CRM solution 1,00,000

3 Web application development tools 2,00,000

4 Networking and Internet access equipment

4,00,000

5 Tutor training and content development 9,00,000

  Total: 18,00,000

VI)Marketing Methodology

Sr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 Field testing 5,00,000

2 Concept Testing 5,00,000

  Total: 10,00,000

VII)Salary of project engineers

Sr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

1 Hardware development engineer 7,20,000

2 Software development engineer 7,20,000

  Total: 14,40,000

VIII)Contingency, Consumables, Travel &

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous

Sr. no.

Item Estimated cost (Rs.)

 1 Contingency 1,50,000

 2 Consumables 1,50,000

 3 Travel 2,00,000

 4 1,00,000

  Total: 6,00,000

Recurring budget –year wise break up

  Manpower    

Sr. no.

ItemI year II year III Year

1

Hardware development engineer 2,40,000 2,40,000 2,40,000

2

Software development engineer 2,40,000 2,40,000 2,40,000

  Total 4,80,000 4,80,000 4,80,000

Recurring budget –year wise break up

I year II year III Year

Miscellaneous

Sr. no.

Other recurring expenses

 1 Contingency 50,000 50,000 50,000

 2 Consumables 50,000 50,000 50,000

 3 Travel 1,00,000 50,000 50,000

 4 50,000 25,000 25,000

  Total: 2,50,000 1,75,000  1,75,000

Summary of recurring budget

Item I year II year III Year

Manpower 4,80,000 4,80,000 4,80,000

Contingency 50,000 50,000 50,000

Consumables 50,000 50,000 50,000

Travel 1,00,000 50,000 50,000

Miscellaneous 50,000 25,000 25,000

Total: 7,30,000 6,55,000 6,55,000

Financial outlay (year-wise)

  I Year II Year III Year

Non recurring 21,60,000 18,00,000 10,00,000

Recurring 7,30,000 6,55,000 6,55,000

Total: 28,90,000 24,55,000 16,55,000

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.

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.

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.

Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!