The ambitious e-literacy project, Akshaya, operating in the southern Indian State of Kerala, has been selected for the Prix Ars Electronica Digital Community award. The Akshaya project was chosen for the award out of 2975 entries from 71 countries.
Akshaya has been described as one of the most ambitious ICT education and development programmes ever launched. The aim of the project is to impart basic knowledge about the internet and computer technology to broad segments of the populace, thereby assisting to bridge the digital divide. The project encompasses multiple objectives of: mass e-literacy, entrepreneurship development, ICT intervention and community empowerment.
Within a period of three years, Akshaya established 6,000 Internet centres and set up infrastructure for the local population and, in so doing, simultaneously created 50,000 new jobs. Akshayas state-funded computer literacy campaign covered 650,000 households, representing more than 3.6 million people. Last year, the district of Malappuram, in Kerala the home of the Akshaya project was declared the country's first e-literate district, with the entire district networked under state-of-the-art wire-free broadband Internet connectivity.
Instituted by the Austria-based Ars Electronica, a platform for digital arts and media, the Ars Electronica Award consists of prize money and a Golden Nica statuette, which are awarded annually in six categories: Computer Animation/Visual Effects; Interactive Art; Digital Musics; Net Vision; Freestyle Computing; and Digital Community. This year, in addition to the six Golden Nicas, 12 awards of distinction and 73 honorary mentions were awarded. The awards will be presented at a festival at Linz, Austria, in September.
The prize money awarded to recipients in the Digital Community category is required to be used to finance the ongoing development of the project itself or of a successor project. The directors of "Akshaya" intend to use their 10,000 award (approximately US$12,400) to expand their internet platform in the areas of agricultural consulting, health and education. There are also plans to roll out this project to seven more districts Ernakulam, Kannur, Kasargod, Kollam, Kozhikode, Pathanamthitta and Thrissur. It is hoped that each village in the seven districts will have two internet centres, with four to six in each municipality and eight to ten in a corporation.
Further information about the Akshaya project can be found at: www.akshaya.net
Source:UNESCO, BANGKOK
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