Sibal hawks Aakash to hype Indian tech
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal said the advanced version of the low-cost computer tablet Aakash-2, with a capacitative screen and three-hour battery life apart from other upgrades, will be launched “very soon” and would be given to students at subsidised rates. Speaking at the first convocation of the Hyde-rabad campus of BITS-Pilani, Mr Sibal asked students and institutions to take such “frugal innovation ideas” seriously. Costs were minimised in delivering improved products, processes and even public services.
“A growing number of universities abroad are taking the frugal innovation message seriously and initiating programmes and centres for it. We need to provide a pedagogic platform for frugal innovation so that the students develop skills, expertise and mindset to innovate differently from those in industrialised nations, who are accustomed to an era of profligate excesses. Will BITS pioneer this field in India?” Sibal asked. “The Aakash idea was rejected throughout the world and it was said that India would not be able to make it,” he said. BITS Chancellor Kumar Mangalam Birla said that it was the turn of students to make the universe “safer and better” over the next few decades.
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