Reliance courses for mothers, kids

To make housewives computer-literate, particularly in cyber-related matters, Reliance WebWorld, a Reliance Infocomm arm, has launched a programme called "Cyber Mom" in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Earlier, the company had launched "Little Genius" to make children familiar with the Internet at its WebWorld centres, which are one-stop shops for digital information, entertainment, and communication that runs on a bandwidth of 256-768 kilobytes per second.

At present, the company has nine shops in MP and Chhattisgarh taken together, in Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Raipur.

Children and mothers surf, chat or experience videoconferencing with the help of three Microsoft certified trainers. Housewives get training in batches with an intake of 12 in each batch. The duration of the course is two and a half weeks, at a fee of Rs 700 in lump sum. Initially, 50 housewives joined the WebWorld in Bhopal only.

"There was demand from mothers of children of the 'Little Genius' programme. It was then that we decided to launch the programme 'Cyber Mom'," Sandeep Arora, WebWorld head, MP circle, told Business Standard.

The "cyber moms", if they want to be regular surfers, can become registered members of WebWorld.

"Various packages are available for them. We are also planning to bring videoconferencing for them, which is limited to only top corporate customers," said Arora, adding, "later our WebWorlds will have coffee shops and 'My Music' facilities, under which the registered members will get CDs of their favourite music or songs downloaded at the WebWorld."

Reliance WebWorld has three key modules, namely a customer convenience centre, a one-stop sales and customer service point for Reliance Infocomm products and services; Java Green, a cafe offering an exciting range of food and beverage products; and a real broadband centre, the world's largest network of public access broadband centres.