The Hindu : Business : Microsoft unveils educational portal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 28, 2007
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Microsoft unveils educational portal

Sandeep Joshi

To broaden opportunity beyond institutions

NEW DELHI: Microsoft India on Wednesday announced the roll-out of project ‘Unlimited Potential’ to enable information technology access to a large number of Indians. The project will focus on creating innovative ways for deploying technology to transform education, foster local innovation, and enable jobs and opportunities to sustain a continuous cycle of social and economic growth in the country.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Microsoft India Chairman, Ravi Venkatesan, said “Unlimited Potential” would draw on the substantial resources and business expertise of Microsoft and its partners to create a model that enables new market opportunities for Indians.

As part of the project, Microsoft will scale up its existing initiatives on the education front and broaden the opportunity beyond institutions to enable access for individuals under a ‘Connected Learning framework’ called IQ, which is essentially a combination of an online and offline content tied into all aspects of a student’s learning process and growth. A key offering is a pilot programme for the IQ PC in partnership with AMD. Microsoft and AMD are also working towards collaborating with Wipro to deliver IQ-PC on Wipro’s ultra-value, he said.

Microsoft also announced the launch of the MSN IQ Beta Education Channel, a repository of educational as well as edutainment content that will help students access curriculum, avail themselves of online tutoring, competitive exam coaching, online entertainment and counselling. “Initially, Microsoft will launch the IQ offerings — both the PC and the Education Channel — in Bangalore and Pune starting July 1 and will roll out to the rest of the country by November,” said Mr. Venkatesan.

Microsoft is also working with partners in government and industry to build an employability portal that will aid the country’s nearly four-lakh engineering students who graduate each year to improve their technology, business and communication skills through online training and verification. The portal is scheduled to be launched by the end of 2007.

Microsoft would also set up a “Microsoft Innovation Centre” later this year that would provide local software developers and IT companies a comprehensive set of programmes and services to expand workforce skills, create jobs, strengthen innovation and improve competitiveness, Mr. Venkatesan added.

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