Decades of neglect of teacher  training and artificial suppression of collegiate remuneration has had a cascading effect upon teachers’ salaries, creating an acute shortage of expert and competent teachers in every segment of the educa-tion continuum. This has prompted a creative response from Dr. Rajat Rakkhit, a polymath alumnus of California, Maryland and Stanford universities with management and new digital technologies experience in several Fortune 500 companies inclu-ding NASA, AMD and LSI Logic, who has co-promoted the Silicon Valley and Singapore-funded Elucido Media Networks Pvt. Ltd in Bangalore.

Newspeg. The company has developed and test-marketed its unique, high-potential Elucido Learning and Collab-oration System (ELCS) which “enables teaching and learning by facilitating real-time student, teacher and content-based interaction and collaboration in geographically distributed classrooms over the public internet”.

Unique sales proposition. “ELCS is a state-of-the-art content delivery platform which enables students in schools, higher education, tutorial, vocational and distance education institutions nationwide, to access the best teachers whose lessons and lectures will become virtually available,” says Rakkhit.

The differentiator of ELCS with V-SAT content delivery systems is that whereas under the latter, teachers/experts are obliged to lecture from a studio, ELCS is a multi-locational, configurable platform, which at modest expense transforms any classroom into a site of content delivery. Thus ELCS, developed in-house by a dedicated research team of 20 computer scientists and electrical engineers in collaboration with teachers, students and policy formulators in NTU, Singapore, Stanford University, Pearson Education and the IIIT-Bangalore enables the company to cherry-pick expert teachers from around the world and convert classrooms into sites of interactive delivery of subject lectures.

Direct speech. Obviously the revolutionary teaching-learning techno-logy of this research-intensive, venture capital funded company comes with a price tag. But according to Rakkhit, the one-time expense involved for install-ation of a projector/personal computer, interactive white board, webcam, speaker phone and LCD display hardware package is a mere Rs.1 lakh, plus a monthly recurring fee of “a few thousand per classroom”. “This revolut-ionary teaching and learning platform only requires standard electronic components such as PCs, projectors, interactive white boards, LCD displays etc. Our solution set enables interactive teaching and learning in individual classrooms, multiple classrooms on a LAN (local area network), and connected classrooms in multiple campuses on a WAN (wide area network),” says Rakkhit.

Future plans. Rakkhit is optimistic that Elucido Media Networks’ technology can revolutionise Indian education by enabling mass delivery of high-quality content and teaching by the country’s best teachers. “For the first time, the country’s best teachers, wherever they are, will become accessible to students wherever they are. ELCS has the capability to transform not only school and higher education, but coaching schools and enterprises as well. A new chapter is about to be written in teaching and learning environments,” says Rakkhit.

Wind beneath your wings!

Dilip Thakore (Bangalore)