Shaastra, the annual technical festival of IIT Madras, is aiming to spread computer literacy to villages in India with its new initiative “Computer Literacy for All”. By making use of old computers donated by residents of the Institute, not only is Shaastra helping the underprivileged, but also effecting a reduction in the amount of e-Waste generated by the premier institute.
Shaastra, which will be held at IIT Madras from 5th - 8th January 2013, is one of the biggest technical fests in Asia, organized by students of IIT Madras. 'Computer Literacy for All' is an initiative by Shaastra to strengthen the computer infrastructure of institutions that serve the needy and hopes that the idea of donating unused computers picks up so that charitable institutions are less burdened. Also, by reusing rather than throwing away, this initiative also helps in waste management and optimum resource utilization. In its inaugural edition, the beneficiary is the Sevalaya Orphanage in Kasuva village.
In a three pronged initiative, first old computers irrespective of the condition they were in, were collected by means of donations from institute residents. Some were working well. Of the others, whatever could be rescued from the junk, whether a hard disk drive or a RAM card or a monitor or a keyboard, were salvaged and repackaged to make new systems from these old parts. Around 25 fully functional computers were collected at the end of this phase. Then, these computers were donated to the Sevalaya, thereby doubling the capacity of their computer lab from 25 computers to 50 computers.
The ceremonial handing over of the computers took place in the Sevalaya campus on 15th December, 2013. The Chief Guest was Mr. Mahesh Panchagnula, the Co-curricular advisor of IIT Madras, who cut the ribbon and thereby inaugurated the ceremony. This donation was a timely act, said Mr. Muralidharan (founder of Sevalaya) when he addressed the gathering. The 300 plus students in 12th standard, most of them in Computer Science stream, will have their practical exams in February and since the institution gets power supply only for around 2 hours a day, it was indeed difficult for all the students to get ample practice for their final exams. And hence, this major addition to their lab capacity came as a boon, he said. After the ceremony, mementos were distributed and a guided tour of the campus was given to all those present- Ms. Sarada, Mr. Souriri Rajan, systems officer in the PG Senapathi Computer Center and other faculty, staff and students who had donated their computers.
Finally, with the help of the IIT Madras chapter of the National Service Scheme (NSS), the student population of around 1500 would be helped in learning how to use this powerful tool, the computer with the help of volunteers from IIT Madras. Shaastra plans to inculcate technical familiarity in the minds of these kids by bringing them to Shaastra and making them participate in the one event tailor-made for school kids at Shaastra- the Shaastra Junior.
In a country like India, where education is seen as the primary means of social upliftment, access to Internet and computers promises to be a boon for effective long- distance learning in villages without quality education or schools, opening up access to new vistas of information. Meanwhile, as the world of technology advances rapidly, the problem of excess amounts of dangerous e-waste being generated is plaguing society. Out of 30 million installed computers in India, 80% are desktops which will soon become obsolete due to wide availability of inexpensive laptops and tablets. Says Akhil Sai, the coordinator of this initiative, “This is how I got the idea. I had an old PC at home, which I had earlier bought for Rs 80,000 that I was selling for just Rs.2,000 as it had become obsolete. I thought, instead of selling it for peanuts, it would be better if it were used by someone who valued it.”
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