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*Project GEIT (Goans Empowered with IT) by GITP to promote IT Education in Goan Village Schools kicked-off with first school on 01-Sep-2015* *Organizers: *Prajyot Mainkar (Androcid), Jervis Pereira (GITIC), Sangeeta Naik (DigitalGoa), Vincent Toscano (Infosys) *Date: *01-Sep-2015 *Time: *11:15am-1:30pm *Location: *St. Bartholomew’s High School (Chorao, Tiswadi) *Details:* Goa IT Professionals (GITP) group’s initiative, titled “Goans Empowered with IT” (GEIT), to promote IT Education in Goan schools for better employment in collaboration with the wider Goan IT and academic community kick-started from St. Bartholomew’s High School, Chorao on 01-Sep-2015. The project actively supported by StartupGoa, GITIC and other well-wishers aims to expose every child in Goan schools, especially in the villages, to the career opportunities galore in Computers and related technologies positively affecting all spheres of human life today. Through a series of sessions and courses on Computer Programming, App Development, Robotics etc. the students will be introduced to this fascinating world in fun and exciting ways to spark their interest for further exploration through self-learning. In addition, the initiative also aims to help school teachers use IT to make regular subjects more interesting, engaging and experiential to the students. In the first phase GITP plans to work with three schools in Goa – St. Bartholomew’s High School (Chorao, Tiswadi), Dayanand Bandodkar School (Gokuldem, Paddi, Quepem), and, Azmane High School (Neura-Mandur, Tiswadi). The introductory session at the Chorao school was attended by over 200 students from standards 4th to 10th. The school Manager, Fr. Miguel Pereira, welcomed the GITP team at the outset and urged the students to make the best out of this opportunity. The session was delivered by Prajyot Mainkar who kept the students engrossed for well over an hour and a half, sharing with them a variety of high-tech content in an easy to understand and interactive manner. The students were charged, excited and enthusiastically tried their best to answer Prajyot’s many questions about technology to win cute little Android goodies on offer. In subsequent phases of this initiative, GITP aims to reach out to these charged minds, fuel their creativity and turn it into passion to bring innovation and employment generation to the village level in Goa. “We are happy that our school has been chosen for this project. We wish to extend wholehearted co-operation to our alumni Vincent Toscano and his GITP team who are trying to help our students learn modern technologies. We want the students to take maximum benefit from this initiative to make a bright career in the field of Information Technology,” said the school Headmistress Mrs. Aveline Dancho while concluding the session. Post this session the GITP team met with the management and staff of the school. The concept of an online repository of school-level teaching and learning content which could be collaboratively built and collated for use by the Goan academic community was proposed to the teachers who opined that this will greatly help in improving the quality of education. However many a concerns were raised by the school staff about the state of IT infrastructure at the school with reference to computers and GBBN connectivity both of which are in a sorry state and need urgent attention of the Department of Education without which this GITP initiative would be in jeopardy. 6 of the 10 government-provided computers are non-functional with expired warranty and the GBBN is highly unreliable. GITP Core Team has brought these matters to the attention of the Goa government which is now considering a couple funding schemes to address such matters and support this noble initiative by GITP. Presently underway at this Chorao school is a detailed audit of its Basic, Science and IT infrastructure besides an Enrolment form to be filled by parents to consent their wards to participate in Project GEIT. Age-appropriate Aptitude Testing would follow in coming weeks to identify the students to be specially coached in Computers and Robotics under Project GEIT starting immediately after the Ganesh Chathurti festival. The other 2 selected schools are planned to kick-off by mid-September and will follow similar pattern of activities as explained above. GITP thanks the Goan press and media community in advance for spreading awareness about its Project GEIT. *Attached photos from the Chorao event:* *Chorao01: *Prajyot casting his spell on the students! *Chorao0**2: *Everybody wants to give an answer and win a goody from Prajyot! *Chorao0**3: *Vincent and Jervis addressing the students *Chorao0**4: *GITP Team exchanging ideas with the school management and staff on Project GEIT *Chorao0**5: *GITP organizing team (L-R) Vincent, Sangeeta, Prajyot and Jervis *Pic06:* GITP banner for Project GEIT -- Regards, Goa IT Professionals www.goaitpro.org
