NIIT brand to gain from World Computer Literacy Day campaign

As the countdown to the second day of December dawns close--the day NIIT has earmarked as World Computer Literacy day--a question that harps the rational mind is why is NIIT undertaking such a huge task? A target audience of two lakh people across 2,500 locations countrywide. Rajendra Pawar, Chairman, NIIT, says that "the major tangible benefit to NIIT is the brand salience that campaign would bring in. Of course, there is a social relevance to the cause along with the business benefit from the exercise."

Pawar makes it clear that there would be no profits from this campaign with the surplus being ploughed back into the pool of money kept aside within NIIT to address the cause of digital divide. The 18-hour course during the campaign would be charged at Rs 749 per individual.

The campaign which was flagged off with much fanfare by Pramod Mahajan, Union Minister for IT and Communication, will also be extended to some foreign countries this year. The Computer Literacy Day was born last year to mark the 20th birth anniversary of NIIT. This year's program has incorporated feedback based on the learnings of last year. For instance, the training period has been extended from 10 hours to 18 hours this time. The curriculum is task-based and at the end of the session, each learner will have some tangible outcome from the learnings like the print-out of an email typed by the individual so that there is some tangibility to the learning.

The learning hours can be spread out according to the convenience of learners. While the first 10 hours would be devoted to instructional learning, the 11th and 12th hours will have a program which will require the learner to teach his learnings to two other people. "This would not only reinforce his learnings but also open the window to two other individuals," says Dr Sugata Mitra, Head (Center For Research In Cognitive Systems), NIIT, and the creator of this program. "The rest of the time would be made available to the learner to practice his
learnings."

This year is also different in that the training would be imparted in four other languages: Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, and Tamil in addition to English. After the program, each learner would also be given a copy of the language software which would be licensed for a period of six months. Says Pawar, "This year onwards, another plank of the campaign will be to provide a platform to an Indian start-up. This year we are associating ourselves with Indore-based Webdunia which has been working on Indian language software. Imagine the leverage of the company by its exposure to the two lakh target audience that we propose to address during the campaign."

Cyber News Service