National Virtual Academy aims at taking frontier technology to villages

Under the 'National Alliance for Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre', the Chennai-based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) has an ambitious aim of selecting one million fellows of the Jamsetji Tata National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity (NVA) by August 15, 2007.

However, MSSRF could select just 298 fellows ever since the establishment of NVA in 2004. MSSRF had launched NVA for bringing together the experts and grassroot-level people in a two-way communication with the objective that knowledge should reach every home and hut.

In the initial step, the foundation had selected 143 fellows. Subsequently, a second batch of 155 fellows has been selected.

Reaching the figure of one million to serve the six lakh villages of the country in the next 20 months could be a gigantic task given the current number of NVA fellows. But MSSRF is happy that there is a growing response to its selection process. For every three months from now, the foundation plans to select a batch of fellows.

According to S Senthilkumaran, project director of MSSRF Informatics Division, the foundation had roped in nearly 30 organisations, including ITC International Business Division, which runs e-Choupals in rural areas, for nomination of fellows for NVA.

As per the guidelines of NVA, the fellows have to be nominated by grassroots organisations working in rural areas all over the country, and would be selected on the basis of their leadership qualities, communication skills and their wish to serve the community.

"So far, we have received more than 800 nominations from 15 states this year. Some of the applications are not fully filled. Some of the applications contain same description. Some of them are landowners (more than 200 hectares). Some of them are working in urban areas. Some are thinking we will provide the training in computer applications. Some of them are requesting us to set up village knowledge centre in their areas. We are not considering such applications/nominations. Our appraiser has looked into all the applications carefully and selected 155 fellows from 13 states," Senthilkumaran told Business Standard.

He said that MSSRF would conduct Participatory Knowledge Management workshop for the newly selected fellows at MANAGE in Hyderabad next month.

The outcome of the workshop will be transferred to Mission 2007 Content Group and explore the possibility of developing functional literacy courses based on their needs.The second convocation of the NVA would also take place on January 5 at the 93rd Indian Science Congress to be held in Hyderabad.

NVA aims at taking the frontier technology to the resource poor rural women and men and enabling them to become masters of their own destiny.

According to MSSRF, rural women and men are rich in grassroots wisdom based on experience of working with nature and natural resources. Their strength lies in the saying "one ounce of practice is worth tons of theory".

Hence, it will be important to identify and elect suitable rural women and men as fellows, so that they become role models in their respective villages.

"They know the problems of rural communities and also their solutions. If rural transformation is to take place, the contributions of grassroots academicians is essential. Whether semi-literate or literate, rural families are able to master new technologies, provided the pedagogic methodology is learning by doing. This method of leapfrogging in acquisition of new skills was termed by M S Swaminathan in 1972 as techniracy," Senthilkumaran said.