LAVA's New Tablets for the Indian Education Sector

LAVA International Limited, a fast growing company in the mobile handset industry, has announced today that the company is committed to facilitate customized products to harness the potential of digital learning in India. The objective is to empower the students with e-learning tools by offering students an access to a whole new view of their world-right at their fingertips. The education sector worldwide is changing too rapidly as a consequence of the ICT revolution and global competiveness for any finality that might be implied by the word ‘best' to be given to current practice. A recent report by global research firm TechSci Research states that the Indian Tablet PC market will cross $2 billion of revenue by the end of 2013. One of the major contributors of this growth is increased use of tablets in education and enterprise sectors.

According to a report by India Ratings, the Indian education sector's market size in FY12 was estimated to be Rs. 341,180crore (US$ 54.20 billion). The sector grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 16.5 per cent during FY05-FY12. The adoption of digital technologies in both the formal and informal education sectors is currently being driven by increasing Wi-Fi connectivity, proliferation of portable end user devices such as tablets & smartphones and 3G cellular networks. LAVA aims to harness the potential of the Indian Education industry, which is expected to increase to Rs 602,410crore by FY15. The new range of LAVA tablets is not just an affordable alternative to laptops but also incorporates the most sophisticated tools of digital learning. Of all the end user devices (such as PCs, laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablets) currently available, tablets are most conducive for the education vertical. A tablet combines the portability & connectivity of smartphone and large display & computing capabilities of a laptop. Coupled with a slick interface, interactive UI (pinch to zoom) and long battery life, it is one of the most optimized devices for education sector for content consumption, computing, communication and interactivity needs. The third-party applications development ecosystem for tablets is also a key advantage for supply side players.

Speaking about this initiative, Mr. S. N. Rai, Co-Founder & Director, Lava International Ltd., said, "We believe that tablets are a great medium for offering an interactive and compelling learning experience. Mobile computing is gaining momentum amongst today's educational organizations because of a new class of devices-the tablet. Immensely portable, tablets serve as eReaders, video repositories, and web browsing devices with instant access to thousands of applications, often replacing the need for books. In the next two - three years we foresee a strong adoption of tablets in India particularly in the Education sector. Lava intends to tap this opportunity through its customized tablets for the education sector and provide an enriching student learning experience." In this endeavor, Lava announced the launch of the first lot of M-TAB in Meghalaya, where eleven thousand units were delivered to students under the Government's Student Digital Learning Scheme. This scheme is one of landmark Information Technology-centric initiatives of the State Government, with a vision that IT will revolutionize the way of teaching and learning. Lava has tied up a deal with iProf, a pioneer in Digital Education solutions, as one of key content partners for this tablet.

Lava M-TAB comes with an in built education app - Digital Library which enables students to access the educational content. All the tablets presented to the students were pre-loaded with study materials of Class XI and Class XII courses of CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) and MBOSE (Meghalaya Board of School Education). Sample question papers for Medical and Engineering examinations, classroom teaching format video & audio books and Megh-Tube, a short video clip that showcases the development activities in Meghalaya have also been pre-loaded in the tablets on the 8GB memory card. Speaking about its partnership with Lava, Mr. Sanjay Purohit, Founder and CEO, iProf India Ltd. said, "Tablet is the ideal most form factor for education consumption and right now all the four factors - affordable hardware, highly interactive content, a user friendly cloud based platform and favorable regulatory mechanism- are highly favoring the exponential potential growth." Other specifications of the M-TAB include a 1.5 Ghz dual core processor, 1GB RAM, 4GB Internal memory, 7inch 1024 * 600 pixel resolution, powerful 3700 mAh battery, Android Jelly Bean v4.1 and a 2MP primary camera. For connectivity options, the tablet has Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 port, HDMI port, Bluetooth and 3G dongle support.