Against the hot winds of inflation, this must come as a cool breeze of relief: an Indian-based firm is offering laptops to schoolchildren at Rs 1200 ($28.33 at today’s rates).

A small-scale unit based in the state of Gujarat in India calls it an ‘electronic school bag’ (ESB), and will have a two-GB flash memory, runs on Linux operating system and has basic features,including a B&W LCDs.

“These ESBs can be modified as per the class in which the children are enrolled. For instance, a student enrolled in class III won’t have to carry books and guides to schools as all such study material can be stored in the ESB. Similarly, ESB for other children enrolled in higher classes can be modified as per their study material,” said Jagdish Bharwad, Recourse Group chief.

The ESB, while providing a writing facility for students to complete their homework, can also be attached to a printer.

The company, which employs ten software engineers and eight hardware engineers, has spent Rs 1.20 crore (approx $2.8 million) on R&D and purchase of equipment to develop the model ESB.

Tags: laptop, Technology

Tags: laptop, Technology

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.