Intel has invested over $1 billion in the past decade towards improving education in 50 countries by using technology. It recently completed training over 7 million teachers in 50 countries while in India it was 1.25 million. As the company continues to expand its footprint in the country, Praveen Vishakantaiah, president, Intel India in an interview with FE?s Diksha Dutta discusses the companies strategies, expansion plans and government collaborations. Experts:

It has been a decade since you started your education initiatives in India. How has the growth been?

It has different aspects. Intel Teach is a programme aimed at making teachers comfortable with the teaching process. Intel Learn on the other hand is meant for rural schools. It also caters to children who cannot attend schools. Both these programmes use technology to solve community problems. We also have added programmes in higher education. Intel grew its research and development presence significantly between 2002 and 2005. After that we got into entrepreneurship activities and innovation. The company trained over 7 million teachers in 50 countries while in India it was 1.25 million. We have presence in all the states in the country. The company has signed MoU with 17 states.

Being an MNC, how do you face the competition from domestic players like NIIT or Educomp?

Intel is technology neutral and focuses on open source curriculum. All the players target teachers but in our model we go and train the master trainers, enabling them to use technology in the classroom. We focus on the use of technology to deliver the content while our competitors focus on the content.

Elaborate on the collaboration with India for education?

Partnership with state governments is interesting and challenging. Whenever you reach a particular district, you take permission for the teacher to spend quality time on a programme. Also, when they use it, we need to check how the programme was incentivised.

We are strong partners with the department of science and technology. We also have a partnership with the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) in the North East. Then we are planning with National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) to reach out to all the teachers. We will even collaborate with IIT-Gwahati for science and maths related programmes.

Which state do you feel is the most aggressive in adopting technology for education?

Right now, the North East is clearly very aggressive in terms of certain goals they want to accomplish. But there are certain phases when each state has been aggressive. Karnataka has been very active in multi-co-curriculum because of the engineering colleges.

Talking about our initiative in the North East, Initiative for Research & Innovation in Science (IRIS) workshops shall have more participation. In the entrepreneurship programme, the region will get a chance to participate in university of California, Berkeley.

We will emphasise on more distant learning and technology usage for the region through digital media.

What are your growth targets for the education initiative?

Its important to understand that each state works at a different pace and has different goals. For us to have an independent goal is irrelevant. If India has a goal, Intel believes to be a partner with the government.