With an aim to empower underserved students with digital learning skills, Vodafone Idea Foundation, the CSR arm of Vi, and Ericsson India have partnered to set up state-of-the-art Robotic Labs in ten schools across the country. These labs will prepare school going children aged 11-14 years to participate in future technological studies.

The Robotics Labs will be established at Vodafone Idea Foundation schools located in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The upcoming Digital Labs are aimed to create an open atmosphere for learning and to instill courage among students to embrace technology and imbibe a problem-solving approach.

These labs will also help to improve the students’ education and employment prospects across Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Under the initiative, students will be offered an exciting learning experience and develop skills such as teamwork, problem-solving skills, and critical thinking.

The robotics course curriculum will focus on providing basic understanding of programming logic in the context of robotics, application of design theory on how to construct a robot to solve basic tasks, use of different datatypes such as string, Booleans etc. through a mix of face-to-face and virtual training sessions. A comprehensive Train-the-Trainer programme will help scale this up to benefit a larger segment of the society in future.

Emphasising on the importance of digital skills for the holistic growth of the youth in the digital era, P Balaji, Chief Regulatory and Corporate Affairs Officer – Vodafone Idea Limited, and Director – Vodafone Idea Foundation said, school going children must be exposed to coding and robotics to spark creativity, stimulates critical thinking, imbues a collaborative mindset and opens up a world of opportunities.

“The introduction to ICT will set the foundation towards preparing young students to be part of a digitally skilled workforce,” said Sonia Aplin, Head of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility for Ericsson Southeast Asia, Oceania and India. “It will aid their economic and personal empowerment, and in turn creating a positive effect on India’s economy,” adds Aplin.

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