Open source is key to reaching 500 million Indian children

To support more than 650,000 villages and one half billion youths who need education, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) created a nonprofit organization called Shiksha India in 2001. One of Shiksha's primary initiatives was the creation of a collaborative online Web portal, which the president of India launched in a formal ceremony last month. The new e-learning and collaboration portal uses open source technology such as Moodle, Drupal, and MediaWiki.

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Isn't it great that Open Source Software is being used for projects as the one above? Organizations, especially educational ones, should focus on what they are good at. Both in time and in money. Getting yourself locked-in to a specific vendor is not a good start, and Zeropoint.it wants to congratulate Shiksha for their well-thought-of decision. Narinder Bhatia, project manager for CII-Shiksha India, says

It is our firm belief that open source has a lot of potential to impact the education process, if harnessed properly.

and we can't agree more.