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A low cost tablet, Aakash 2 'UbiSlate 7Ci' manufactured by DataWind was launched by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee and the Human Resources & Development (HRD) Minister, MM Pallam Raju on the occasion of National Education Day on November 11th.
Aakash 2 is a 7 inch tablet and it is powered by Android 4.0 processor. It comes with features such as 800x480 pixel resolution, 4 point projective capacitive, 1 Ghz RAM, 512 MB memory etc.
The tablets will be supplied to IIT Bombay under the Human Resources & Development ministry's National Mission on Education through Information & Communication Technology (NME-ICT) and it will be distributed to Engineering University and College students.
Over the last two months, IIT Bombay has developed unique and compelling applications for engineering students on the Aakash2 platform, which include 3D-modelling, C++ programming, remote and collaborative training applications, robotic control and live assessment tools. IIT Bombay has partnered with the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), to assist with the hardware testing and logistics.
The Subrao Nilekani Chair Professor at IIT Bombay, Dr. Deepak B. Phatak, heads the project at IIT Bombay with the support of C-DAC. Professor Phatak stated “I'm not only confident, but sure that Aakash 2.0 is here to stay.” In the first phase, DataWind is to supply 100,000 units of Aakash 2 to IIT Bombay, which intends to distribute them to Engineering University and College students. NME-ICT Director, N.K.Sinha said, “We envision all 220 million students across India to be enabled by low cost Aakash devices in the coming years.”
DataWind CEO, Suneet Singh Tuli said, “We wish to use technology to fight poverty with a passion. Access to computers and internet will help deliver a better quality education and level the playing field for all Indians”.