A 6-monthly Update

Hi Everyone,

 

It has been a very long time (for some of you, since last August), since you heard from me. I apologize for the long delay. As you all know, I am in India, working on a two-year service project in the town of Bagar in the western 'desert' state of Rajasthan. I am looking to see how computer technology can benefit the population of the rural town that I'm working in (and how I can play a part in that).

 

I tried to keep a blog to send in updates, but that hasn't worked out too well. Some highlights so far:

 

• After struggling long and hard to figure out what I need to get working on to benefit this town, I realized that the people needed to understand the practical applications of the Internet in their daily lives. It took me till December to figure out what I wanted to do: Start a computer class for high-school students, that focused on the application of computers. My hypothesis was that if I taught the class in a project-based approach (rather than theoretical/rote learning), these kids would start thinking application themselves. Well, I finally got the class going on Feb 26th of this year, and got the computers about 3 weeks after that. Clearly, getting the funding approved and the computers took time. Also to promote the class in all the schools in the town (there's a few of them as kids come from neighbourhing villages and far away to study here). And finally it took time to interview and select the kids. To accelerate the learning process, I wanted to take students who already had some familiarity in front of a computer (knew how to move a mouse, type some characters, open programs, save files, basic formatting in Word etc). Well, I was looking for around 24 kids for my class, and I would be happy even if I got 20 candidates to apply. Things took a turn for the better - about 140 kids applied, and even at around 20 minutes a kid, it took some time to interview all of them.

All said and done though, the class finally started, the computers got here (all very slick btw - with LCD screens and what not), and now looking to see how I can get these kids excited about computers. Any ideas and suggestions to get kids in rural towns in India to really get excited and see the value of using computers in their daily lives is much appreciated.

• Also started a campaign to clean up the trash situation in the town. Been on and off on it since September. On it right now, where we're looking to take one of the wards (neighbourhoods) of our town, and clean it up to make it a model ward. Doing some needs assessment right now, will be ramping up things on that soon. The particularly issue seems to be the gutters that get clogged up due to the trash, and the fact that due to limited resources, the cleaning of any ward only happens once every 15 days. Will keep everyone posted (I hope).

 

• Finally, as part of a case study, I am looking to bring about efficiencies in administration in a school through computerization. Its a classic Systems Analyst/IT consultant gig in my mind - find out where the inefficencies lie (in this case, every single thing is done on paper), see where the value is, find the best solution, design it, implement it, train the folks and let 'em at it. Due to time constraints because of a report due to Indicorps (and also since this is now the third concurrent project), I'm going to try and wrap up before mid-May. It'll be small changes then - but the amount of time they can now save with just Excel is unbelievable. If you guys truly want to see how MS Office can change your life, come here. For example, there is something called a Bill of Salary that takes a person one full day to update every month - something that will take 45 minutes to create in Excel, and 15 minutes to update every month. No joke. And the formulas would be straight from 'Excel for Beginners'.

I could use help with figuring out a decent school administration software though, especially one that makes sense in the INdian contexts. Would have to include school records, transfer certificates, results sheets, report card etc to make real sense in my mind. And Hindi language is a MUST. Which reminds me  - does anyone know if MS Access XP or later support Unicode data input (so that Hindi can be stored)?

 

There is obviously a lot more that happened in the last 3 months that I haven't captured here - for example, training for and successfully completing a half marathon, getting excited about Hindi language computing, the downs and ups, working on a virtual tour of the Gandhi Ashram, trips to other NGOs in India, future plans about beaming broadband from a town 15KM away into Bagar by setting up towers, and then wi-fing all of Bagar etc etc. One thing that I do have to capture is the fact that my phone got stolen, and I finally do have a replacement number:

 

Ashish New Mobile in India: +91 9828 73 6464

 

I'm 9.5hours ahead of East Coast, 10.5 hours ahead of Mid-West and 12.5 hours ahead of West Coast.

 

If you prefer writing by snail mail (and sending in all sorts of goodies, hehehe), here's the address:

 

Ashish Gupta

Guest House

Piramal Boys Sr. Sec School

Piramal Nagar

Bagar, District Jhunjhunu

Rajasthan - 333023

INDIA

 

Take care, and hope to hear from you soon.

 

- Ashish