In a move to power e-learning to remote areas in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Satellite solution provider Yazmi announced a new e-learning scheme using the first satellite-enabled tablet, called Odyssey™, and Newtec’s multicast technology to deliver content via satellite to rural, remote and low income regions on these continents.
The new scheme aims to deliver content to aid students and teachers in remote areas or those without computing and Internet infrastructure. A pilot phase is already ongoing in India and various trials began October to December in two schools in South Africa, in Rietkol, in Mpumalanga Province, and at Heathfield, in Western Cape.
In Western Cape, each student in Grade 6 has received an Odyssey 700 tablet and can now access live lectures, as well as supplementary material, via classroom servers installed at each school using the WLAN interface. Solar chargers have also been provided.
“We believe satellite is the perfect candidate for e-learning connectivity,” said Noah Samara, Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yazmi. “With our system in place the possibilities are endless – lectures can be live streamed from any location, teacher training courses can be offered and having a connected device for multimedia consumption allows teachers and students to access and store high quality educational content. Empowered with Newtec’s multicast gear it is quite unique in the market.”
The service is running on Newtec’s TelliCast, which enables the reliable distribution of files, directory structures and data streams, consists of a server package combined with a set of software clients that can be installed on computers or embedded into a variety of receiver devices. For Yazmi, the result is a multicast allowing educational content to be distributed to a large number of recipients with only one single transmission.
“We are proud to be a part of this very important scheme which has the potential to create sustainable economic growth through a more educated and healthier community,” said Newtec’s CEO Serge Van Herck. “Our technology ensures the content required for students and teachers is delivered in a reliable, secure and controlled manner.”
