Bridging the Digital Gap in Rural India VIVEKDISHA: A Novel Experience Partha Goswami#, Rajarshi Mahapatra+ and Sw. Divyasukananda* #

Computer & Informatics Centre, IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India + Dept. Of ECE, Graphic Era University, Dehradun, India * Vivekdisha, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Belur, India Email: # [email protected], [email protected], *[email protected] Abstract—VIVEKDISHA is an ICT-based Network of Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University (RKMVU). The objective of this network is to showcase several methodologies for the all-round development of a community by bringing technology and knowledge directly to the door steps of the people. To the best of our knowledge, the introduction of low-cost multimedia-based online classes at rural schools in India has been pioneered by this network. The rural virtual class rooms and telemedicine centres used in this network are more economical than traditional hardware-based video conferencing solutions and the same realistic approach may be followed to serve rural education and health sectors. It has been found that reliable 512 kbps broadband internet connectivity is the most essential component of this kind of network. In reality, availability of reliable broadband Internet connectivity in rural India is a challenge as all telecom operators are not motivated to bridge the digital gap through broadband Internet penetration in rural India. This paper shares the experiences of Tele-education at schools and Tele-medicine at geographically challenged (Sundarban - delta region of West Bengal) areas. Since the age of the Vedas, education and health have been instrumental in the development of society; hence the proposed Tele-education and Tele-medicine methodology will pave one of the ways to bridge the digital gap in rural India.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The social behaviours, democratic processes and creativity in rural areas can be uplifted through electronic services with the wider diffusion of web-based social networking. Across the globe, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are going to play a pivotal role to address the major societal challenges of sustainable and uniform growth across the society. ICT-based technologies are also going to be the great saviour for the socio-economic development in rural India by considering the availability constraints of natural resources, increasing food demand, health, education, social care, and security from disasters. Government has taken several initiatives to address those socio-economic challenges. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeiTY) [1] is engaged in e-Infrastructure creation for e-Development in India. In the recent past, State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) [2] have been established for delivering services between government to government (G2G) and government to citizen (G2C). 978-1-4673-5952-8/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE

In another initiative, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has launched the idea of Village Resource Centres (VRC) [3] in association with reputed organizations using VSAT connectivity through EDUSAT [4]. Currently the implementation of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) [5] is rolling out to bring all the stakeholders from science, technology, higher education, healthcare, agriculture and governance onto a common platform. However, the connectivity of the above mentioned government networks to the common citizen, especially in rural areas is yet to be adequate due to slow penetration of broadband services in rural India. This creates a digital gap between urban and rural areas and promotes non-uniform growth across the country. The National Broadband Plan [6] has been proposed for the extensive creation of broadband infrastructure during the 12th plan period and it is going to offer major growth opportunities in ICT. There is a synergy between the above mentioned e-initiatives of the government and the proof of concepts established by Vivekdisha [7]. Vivekdisha is exploring the elearning process through virtual class rooms at rural schools where students can enjoy multimedia based interactive teaching from remote locations. A virtual classroom at a rural school also allows a rural 1st generation learner to attend lectures delivered from anywhere in the world and it aims to provide a learning experience that is similar to a real classroom as shown in Fig. 1. Similarly, the possibilities of extending e-community services (like G2C, agricultural advice, tele-education, access to digital library, entrepreneurship and telecommuting) are also in active consideration from their existing rural tele-medicine centres. In this paper, we would like to share our experiences from the projects run by Vivekdisha. This may motivate the funding agencies to invest on e-community centres in every village and virtual class rooms in every educational institute. Such a big investment cannot happen in a vacuum, so previous experiences will help the government administration to develop a village electronically. II.

BACKGROUND OF VIVEKDISHA & ITS SERVICES

During 2008 Vivekdisha started offering online classes with the help of wired broadband [8] from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL, an incumbent telecom operator in India) [9] and VSAT connectivity through EDUSAT of ISRO. In 2008 offering online classes in rural West Bengal was a completely new concept. It was difficult to convince the school authorities to accommodate such on-line classes during school hours.

Figure 1. Web based virtual online class rooms are bridging the digital divide. Teacher can see all remote classes, share study materials (video clips, animated presentation, and text) and explain the same in Bengali (local language of West Bengal).

At that time students from nearby schools used to join in the evening hours at Vivekdisha centres. Initially, on-line teaching was started at six such rural centres (Medinipur, Purulia, Cooch Behar, Sandeshkhali, Khanakul and Manasadwip) of West Bengal. The tele-medicine service was also extended to Sandeshkhali and Khanakul centres. Since the launch of this program, major technical hurdles, such as technical issues on EDUSAT and unstable wired broadband connections in the various locations have been experienced to continue the services. However, at the same time it has been recognized by few school authorities that multimedia-based online classes are useful in developing the cognitive power of the students. As a result, the student strength increases non-linearly as shown in Fig. 2. Currently at the beginning of 2013, eight schools are already receiving regular online classes and three schools are taking regular off-line classes. A few new schools have undertaken the initial steps (obtaining broadband connectivity) to joining the online classes. In case of telemedicine, at present more than 1000 people are getting treatments round the year in the inaccessible area of Choto Sehara village of Sandeshkhali. Apart from these, the Vivekdisha network is also used for attending classes from homes across the country and abroad,

vocational training, attending conferences from anywhere (including remote rural areas) and international collaboration [10] for the promotion of health and economic development of Sandeshkhali (an Aila affected area [11] ). Currently a web based solution, named “WebEx Meeting Centre” are being used and the host at expert centre can invite remote users over email. Vivekdisha has currently subscribed services for simultaneous 25 remote participants, which is far below the capacity of the “WebEx” solution [12] (as per data sheet it supports a maximum of 500 participants). Figure 3 shows the network architecture which allows participants from across the globe can join the web conferencing servers. Currently all rural centres (except Sandeshkhali) are connected through 512 kbps wired broadband connectivity provided by BSNL as mentioned earlier. Sandeshkhali centre at Choto Sehara village is connected through Wi-MAX [13], which is provided by BSNL. In summary, the primary focus areas of this network are teleeducation at schools with a greater emphasis on rural areas and tele-medicine at remote locations. A brief experience of teleeducation and tele-medicine has been presented in the next section.

•

800

Number of Students

700 600 500 Class 6

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Class 7 Class 8

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100 0 2008

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Figure 2. Total number of students attending Virtual classes

• VIVEKDISHA Expert Centre at RKMVU MCU H.323

NKN Virtual Class rooms

Vivekdisha Experts in India

NKN

National ISPs Web-conf. Server “VIDYO”

Vivekdisha Rural Centers

VIVEKDISHA Experts at abroad

Global ISPs

Web-conf. Server “Webex”

Vivekdisha Students at abroad

Figure 3.Current Vivekdisha Network Architecture

III.

TELE-EDUCATION & TELE-MEDICINE EXPERIENCES

As the world is gradually becoming more and more connected, ICT-based teaching practices in higher education are being extensively used and emphasized. Tele-education is an application of ICT to provide online and offline education. Vivekdisha is imparting tele-education from their expert centres to the rural schools so that young minds can make interdisciplinary connections, apply the concepts to the real world, use the scientific methods, develop interest in mathematics, science, etc. and finally learn moral values. The salient features of the online teaching methodologies of Vivekdisha are as follows: • The communication is interactive through videoconferencing. Real time tele-education is facilitating a high level of interaction among students and the teacher, with the aid of multimedia-based materials as shown in Fig. 1. • This method allows concept building in a faster, easier and more enjoyable way. Experience shows that the time taken to deliver Physical Science and Life Science classes using this method is about one-third that of conventional methods. For instance, the time taken for imparting Life Science topics to the students of class 9 and 10 with greater details and clarity is 30 periods (40 minutes duration each). The local state board allots 75 periods of 40 minutes each for the same coursework.

This method provides more time for interactions between teacher and students as texts, pictures and video clips are well prepared beforehand requiring no time to write and draw during the class. This helps to reduce the idle time of students in contrast with the traditional type of teaching where writing and drawing of a picture on the board needs more time. As experts conduct the online classes, rural school teachers also receive a practical demonstration of teaching science, mathematics and communicative English. Additionally, remote end teachers are getting the motivation to start teaching subjects with the help of multimedia-based facilities which are already created for online classes. In fact some school teachers have already started taking classes with the help of multimedia tools to make their classes more lively, effective and enjoyable. Students are always able to see the teacher and the active speakers feel the living presence of the teacher as well as other participants. Participating students from different locations are not visible on the screen except at the beginning or at some necessary situations to avoid destruction in teaching learning process.

Similarly, telemedicine allows doctors to examine and direct the treatment of patients in rural centres. This approach gives rural residents to access doctors remotely who are not often available in rural areas. This minimizes travelling difficulties for the patient, cost of travelling for the doctor for advice and treatment and also allows family members to participate in the discussions. This service also helps the local experts in gaining advanced knowledge. Such telemedicine centres can save lots of life during natural disasters. As an example, the centre located at Choto Sehara village of Sandeshkhali Block-1, 24 Parganas (as shown in Fig 4 and 5) had helped more than 500 victims of the “Aila” Cyclone in May 2009. Vivekdisha was able to provide the telemedicine service as early as possible to the Aila victims. At that time the VSAT network and a high capacity battery backup system were the great saviours of the telemedicine service as it enabled continued dispensation of urgently required critical care in such a geographically challenged rural area.

Kalinagar Rural Exchange Remote Clinic of Vivekdisha

Wi-Max Base Station

Figure 4. The Google earth map of Choto Sehara village

Figure5. Space and ICT based Vivekdisha Centre at Choto Sehara village

Figure 6. Necessary equipmemt at the teaching end.

Figure 7. Simple arrangements of virtual class rooms at Vivekdisha

A. An experience of an online class At Vivekdisha, a teacher teaches using a digital notepad or multimedia presentation with the help of computer software. The contents are transmitted simultaneously to all the centres affiliated with the program. Students at these centres can see and hear both the teaching end and the students at other centres who are also participating in the online class. At the same time, the teacher at the teaching end can see and hear all the participating centres. It creates a virtual class room environment whose boundaries are not defined. It makes a vibrant interactive virtual-classroom environment for the teacher and students at various geographically isolated centres. The tentative cost of creating a teaching end is about Rs. 80,000. The teaching end consists of a computer with accessories, operating system: MS Win Home Basic 7,

application software: MS Office Home with Student 2010, UPS: 800 VA UPS, Web cam-12 mega pixel, Desktop speaker set, Desktop microphone, Digital notepad and computer table as shown in Fig. 6. The tentative cost for the virtual class room end is about Rs. 1, 60,000. The virtual class room consists of a computer with accessories, operating system: MS Win Home Basic 7, Application software: MS Office Home with Student 2010, UPS: 1500 VA UPS with adequate battery backup, Web cam-12 mega pixel, projector, 4ft X 6 ft. projector screen, camera stand, Cord less microphone, 60 W amplifier, 2 nos. Speaker and Computer table as shown in Fig. 7. The computers may be Single core 2.4 GHz, 512Mb (for 180p video resolution) or Dual core 2.0 GHz, 1 Gb (for 360p video resolution). As per our knowledge, this is the first time low-cost multimedia-based online classes have been introduced for rural schools in India, based on a web based solution with a bare minimum hardware installation. In this process, volunteer teachers are joining from various locations around the globe to teach the rural children on a regular basis. Experiences from the teacher’s standpoint are as follows: • In this system the blackboard is not used at all unlike in the case of common online classes where the camera captures the teacher and blackboard of a local class. The writing part is done completely digitally and can be saved and shared with anyone immediately. • Every study material can be shared easily and quickly. The educational video content may be uploaded to the WebEx server and then it can be played. Also, in this approach playing the multimedia content at any remote end will not be constrained by the bandwidth at the teaching end. • Teachers can see all the participants on the screen as shown in Fig. 1 & 6. It is important to mention that all participating classes should be conducted in the virtual mode, i.e. there should not be one local class and others in the virtual mode. If this was not considered, the teacher would not be able to take the benefit of the extensive use of multimedia tools as he/she would have to focus on the local class room and virtual class rooms separately. • Audio is real time (VOIP codec iSAC) and echo free as teacher can mute the microphone of remote end from his/her desktop. • Conversion of a regular rural class room to a virtual class room, few modifications are needed, such as suitable lighting arrangements, elimination of external sound, protection from excessive heat during summer, physical security measures, etc. • Minimum bandwidth requirement is 320 Kbps but 1 Mbps or higher is recommended [12]. It has been found that the 512 Kbps BSNL wired broadband network connection is suitably sufficient for which the operating expenditure is about Rs. 5000 per annum. • It can go up to 30 video frames per second if adequate bandwidth is available. As per our experience, when available bandwidth is 652 Kbps then Webex can send or receive 24 video frames per second with 360p video resolution. Similarly, when available bandwidth is 153 Kbps then Webex can send or receive 11 video frames per second with 180p video resolution The video codec is

H.264. The CPU utilization and memory utilizations for the WebEx application are 4 % and 6 % respectively. B. A tele-Medicine experience The telemedicine centre has been established at Choto Sehara village, which is a place cut off from main land by a river and is also having poor road connectivity. The centre provides homoeopathic as well as allopathic treatments as shown in Fig. 8. Currently medicine is given to the patients free of cost. Tentative expenditure for allopathic medicine is about Rs. 3000 per 60 patients per month. One female social worker facilitates the technical and logistics operation at tele-medicine centres as shown in Fig. 9. The major hurdles to continue the service is the availability of reliable Internet bandwidth. This centre has experienced three types of connectivity viz. VSAT connectivity from ISRO, wired broadband from BSNL, and currently 512 Kbps Wi-MAX connectivity from BSNL. The brief experience can be summarized as follows: • This kind of service is extremely useful for remote rural areas from where a visit to the nearest medical facility can pose significant challenges for the patients. • Wired broadband is not reliable in such areas due to large local loop distances, poor maintenance and high soil salinity (after Aila). • Apart from BSNL (an incumbent operator) there are no other alternative sources to get 512 Kbps internet bandwidth connectivity. Other operators are not ready to invest in providing data services in such areas as there is an apprehension of low average revenue per user. • Currently annual operating expenditure for a 512 Kbps Wi-MAX connection is Rs. 10,000 approximately.

The audio and video statistics (with Tx/Rx format) during a telemedicine session with the above mentioned links with video 180p video resolution are follows: Bw: 301Kbps / 218Kbps, Audio Latency: 358ms / 358ms, Video Latency: 375 ms / 372 ms, Audio Jitter: 34ms / 4ms, Video Jitter: 11ms/ 15msAudio Packet loss: 0% / 0%, Video Packet loss: 0% / 1%, Frame per second: 12 / 12 IV.

This paper shared the experiences of tele-medicine and teleeducation projects of the Vivekdisha network. These projects are being rolled out in an efficient manner with limited resources. The Capex of virtual class room hardware is approximately Rs. 1.6 Lakhs. Such low-cost makes the solution more scalable. This experience can be considered as a pilot to roll out other similar big projects with government and private initiatives. As a matter of fact this kind of virtual class room may be replicated at NKN virtual class room development initiative of DeiTY. State level health departments may also use the same model at the Health centres. This model also can inspire the investor to create ecommunity centres at each of the villages. Based on the above facts and figures, a key enabler to bridge the digital gap in rural India is at least 512 Kbps connectivity over wired or wireless network. The telecom service providers have a major role in these initiatives. The hope is that programmes run by Vivekdisha will inspire others to use the Internet as a human network to make a healthy, socially secured knowledge society. REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Figure 8. Doctors interacting with patients over WebEx [7] [8] [9]

[10] [11] [12] Figure 9. Doctors examining the patient remotely with the help of lady facilitator.

CONCLUSION

[13]

Department of Electronics and Information Technology. [Online] http://deity.gov.in/ National Institute of Smart Government. [Online] http://www.nisg.org/ Space technology enabled Village Resource Centers (VRC) [Online] http://www.isro.org/publications/pdf/VRCBrochure.pdf Edusat programme [Online] http://www.isro.org/scripts/sat_edusat.aspx National Knowladge netowrk [Online] http://www.nkn.in Recomendation National Broadband Plan, TRAI, 8th Dec, 2010.[Online] http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Recommendation/Documents/Rc ommendation81210.pdf Ramakrishana Mission Vivekananda University [Online] http://www.rkmvu.ac.in What is Broadband. [Online] http://www.broadband.gov/about_broadband.html Broadband Services of BSNL [Online] http://www.bsnl.co.in:9080/opencms/bsnl/BSNL/services/broadband/ind ex.html Global Heath Share Initiative [Online] http://ghs.ucdavis.edu/foodsecurity.html Cyclone Aila update - June 2009 [Online] http://www.who.int/hac/crises/bgd/cyclone_aila_june2009/en/index.html Webex Data Sheet [Online] http://www.webex.com/fileadmin/webex09/files_en_us/pdf/data_sheets/ mc_vds.pdf Wi-MAX Forum [Online] http://www.wimaxforum.org/