It may still be difficult to find an iPad in Mumbai, but scientists from Singapore are working on a low-cost power stingy tablet for children in rural India that can be charged using solar energy.

Children in village schools are just like their peers anywhere in the world: eager to learn, tech savvy, and willing to try new educational tools that engage their creative minds. The I-slate can help bring the marvels of technology into thousands of rural schools and contribute to an improved learning experience.

Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Rice University are developing an electronic notepad that consumes very little energy. This device, called I-slate may soon allow some of the estimated 100 million Indian children who attend schools without electricity to have access to an electronic notepad.

I-Slate, Palem’s brainchild, is in development at Institute of Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics (ISAID) which is based at NTU. The first prototypes of the I-slate, which were built by a team that included three Rice undergraduates, are set to undergo their second round of tests in India later this month.

Palem, who directs ISAID, said the device is the first of a series of electronic notepads being built around a new class of green, power-stingy microchips that use a fraction of the electricity of today’s processors.
    
The chips are under development in partnership between ISAID and Switzerland’s Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology, the chips will make it possible for the I-slate to run on solar power from panels similar to those used in hand-held calculators. The I-slate began to take shape over the summer, and early prototypes were introduced in tests at a school near Hyderabad in early August.

Src: Jaison Lewis, Mumbai Mirror, 12th Nov 2010