NIIT anoints 2 Dec as World Computer Literacy Day

NIIT has anointed 2 December as 'World Computer Literacy Day', as a furtherance of its two-decade long mission to spread computer education across the world. On 2 December, many people across nations would be introduced to computers for the first time. As a curtain raiser to this event, the 'World Computer Literacy Day' logo was unveiled in New Delhi by Pramod Mahajan, Minister for Information Technology & Communications and Parliamentary Affairs.

Starting 2 December, NIIT will harness its strengths and resources across 27 countries, including its vast network of nearly 3000 education centers, to bring IT knowledge into the lives of nearly 1,00,000. On 2 December, NIIT will train around 8,000 of India's elected leaders - MPs, MLAs and corporators and 12,000 of Government school toppers of classes 8,9,10 and 11 absolutely free.

NIIT's special course, SWIFT Jyoti, is NIIT's effort to help 1,00,000 Indians cross the digital divide. A survey cutting across vast segments of society guided the NIIT think tank in building the course for global citizens, which will enable them to participate in the evolving digital economy.

"In a knowledge-based global economy, one is always worried about the digital divide. This divide is no longer just a sociological or cultural issue, it has become an economic, development issue. The advanced countries are going to depend on the digital language in the future and India must not lag behind. The computer revolution has to be taken to every home. IT literacy has to be take to the massed and we all must cross the digital divide," said Pramod
Mahajan.

"As an IT Training pioneer, NIIT has been consistently working towards bringing people and computers together. Be it the Hole-in-the-Wall experiment or the SWIFT India movement, our commitment to bridge the digital divide has only grown stronger. For our 20th anniversary we'd like to reiterate this commitment by declaring December 2, our Foundation Day, as the World Computer Literacy Day," said Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman, NIIT, who also announced a "special package of 20,000 free courses" for India's elected leaders and the Government school toppers.