HP India in talks with IGNOU for lab-in-box

Having installed its fourth 'Lab-in-Box', a self sustainable computer lab in a shipping container, in the country at Ahmedabad, Hewlett-Packard (HP) India is now in talks with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) for installing more such labs.

"Currently, we have been installing these computer labs on pilot basis at public schools in places like New Delhi, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad. However, we are also looking at enhancing the labs' social usage after school hours. For this, we are in talks with IGNOU which is highly interested in our labs-in-boxes who can run their post-school hour classes in these shipping containers," said Jaijit Bhattacharya, director, Government Affairs, HP India.

The technology company had installed its fourth 'lab-in-box' prototype at Vidyanagar Primary School in Ahmedabad in association with the Government of Gujarat. According to Bhattacharya, each HP Lab-in-Box comprises a shipping container that has 15 HP multi-seat thinclients, a multifunctional printer, wireless connectivity, electricity, furniture, fans and air conditioning. HP’s multi-seat computing solution means multiple users can be connected to one PC, which maximises space while reducing cost and complexity.

What's more, while HP India is in talks with central and state governments for installing more such labs across public schools in the country, it has received demands from other countries as well. "Even Indonesia, Afghanistan and other African countries have also been demanding this lab but we are waiting for the pilot projects to get stabilised," said Bhattacharya.

HP is also hosting a cloud based educational application that searches and displays relevant videos from the internet, based on the textbook being read by the student. The application has an adaptive online self-learning tool called MindSpark from Educational Initiatives, an HP partner, who is providing personalised assessment tools to the student in the local Gujarati language.

The previous three pilots are running at the Government Sarvodaya Senior Secondary School in New Delhi, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) campus in New Delhi and by the Indian army at the Western Command, Chandigarh.

"As a catalyst of innovation in education, the HP Sustainability and Social Innovation Group and HP Government Affairs engaged HP Labs and other HP groups to support the HP Lab-in-Box personalized learning pilot in Gujarat," he added. According to estimates, only 12.4 per cent of India’s 220 million school-going children go on to attend college. "As part of its Vision 2020 plan, the Indian government is looking to increase the number of school-going children to 30 per cent by 2020. Access to education and technology will play a key role in enabling this and HP Lab-in-Box contributes by addressing the biggest challenge to IT adoption by Indian schools – the lack of infrastructure," said Bhattacharya.