How Lenovo India Is Closing the Digital Divide in Rural Gujarat

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / August 1, 2023 / Lenovo

Foto: Accesswire

Children using tablets under the Agastya International Foundation's Lab-on-a-Tab program in Kengeri, Bangalore

In India, if a village manages to bridge the digital divide and the school-going children become computer savvy, it is bound to draw attention.

This is just what has happened in the remote village of Boru in Gujarat's Gandhinagar district. The local Public School managed to bridge the digital divide between the urban and rural communities by sourcing tablets from Lenovo and ushering in the information technology revolution.

Boru is an unassuming village with a population of a little over 5,000 people. Despite the village's relative obscurity, it was not spared from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Public School was forced to shut down as the country went into a complete lockdown.

This school is the only school in town that underprivileged children relied on for good English education and a promising future. The pandemic and the resultant shutdown put an end to that. Most students who were from low-income families did not have access to any device or laptop to learn from home and thus their education was severely affected, highlighting the digital divide that exists between the privileged and the disenfranchised. The pandemic only widened the digital divide further: Data shows that rural broadband penetration is only 29 percent against the national average of 51 percent.

The school had to do something as children were missing out on their studies due to the unavailability of devices and lack of Internet connectivity, and so the administration launched a campaign where 144 students from classes 5 to 8 were provided with Lenovo's cost-effective M7 second-generation tablets with 2GB RAM, and sim cards that allowed them1.5GB of data daily.

The results were magical. With almost 100% attendance, the students got back to studying online and did not face a learning gap. Moreover, there were no dropouts.

The school wanted to ensure that the students did not misuse the tablets and reached out to Lenovo for support. The Lenovo tablet team advised the school on the use of educational solutions to make sure that the devices were used only for educational purposes. They deployed the Lenovo ThinkUEM software that allowed for constant monitoring and a check on the content being viewed. The Geofence feature of the program ensured the students were within the defined parameters set by the school. Additional features such as the online status and screen mirroring of the devices allowed teachers to monitor the real-time activity and helped in the quick resolution of any issues.