Guruji, a solar-powered, LED-based “blackboard” targeting rural education, has won the Manthan 2010 awards for the “Innovation of the Year”. Guruji is a product of Pune based Databyte Equipment Pvt. Ltd. which has been working in the area of multi-lingual hardward and software since 1981.
About Guruji
Guruji is a programmable, LED based blackboard that can show text (in various languages) and simple images on the LED-based screen, can play recorded audio along with the visuals, and can be controlled by an infrared remote.
It’s about 15″x12″ in size, can be placed on a table or hung on a wall, runs on rechargeable battery for about 8 hours, and the battery can be charged from regular mains, or from a solar panel.
The basic idea is to use this in rural classrooms to teach elementary skills such as reading, writing, counting, addition, etc.
In addition to the hardware itself, Guruji also has a number of pre-recorded lessons in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and English.
Keeping the rural market in mind, it is priced at approximately Rs. 4500.
See this video for a demo of a Guruji lesson:
If you cannot see a video above click here.
About Databyte
Databyte Equipment Pvt. Ltd., founded by Jugal Gupta, is a Pune based company which has been working in the area of multi-lingual hardward and software since 1981. Their customers include various sections of the Indian Army, various sections of Indian Railways, many of the biggest banks in India, and a bunch of other government departments.
Databyte is also the inventor of the basic Indian languages input system that powres Lipikaar.
About the Manthan Awards
Since 2004, Manthan Awards have been organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation, in partnership with World Summit Award, Department of Information Technology, Govt. of India, and various other stakeholders. The basic idea is to recognize and promote innovative products in information and communication technology from across South Asia. This year, there were 456 entries mainly from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan.
For more information see this article in Mint