STEM, coding, digital skills. If you follow education, these buzzwords are inescapable.
It's not as easy as buying a couple of laptops and handing them to school kids, however, as Rangan Srikhanta, founder and CEO of Sydney-based social enteprise One Education, knows all to well.
After working for years with the Australian arm of the U.S. initiative One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), which aims to give a low cost laptop to every child globally, Srikhanta told Mashable Australia he has learnt from the troubled experiences of teachers on the ground, especially those in remote areas. "Schools have been getting various devices, but they've been left to hold the baby in many ways," Srikhanta said.
"Current technology is disruptive, but not for the right reasons," he explained. "We realised that a lot of the technology out there has been designed for one user at home ... It's actually a pain in the backside for most schools and teachers."
The school may not have Wi-Fi, for example, or there may only be two power points available to charge devices in the classroom because the building was constructed in 1940. "It just sucks up so much time and oxygen in the school," he said, pointing to the number of times he has spoken to school principals lining up with broken iPads at the Apple Genius bar on their weekend.
Now, Srikhanta thinks he may have a solution.
From early 2014, One Education has been working on a prototype for a new kind of device that will suit the modern classroom, from the inner city to the outback. Called the Infinity, the modular tablet aims to be a robust, easily repairable device that will benefit students while not being a pain for teachers.
But first, the specs.
The tablet, with a camera and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, will have a 8.9-inch touch screen and a 1.4GHz Quad Core processor. It will also come with a keyboard dock to turn the device into a laptop.
Its modular design is probably the most exciting feature — all parts of the tablet are easily slid apart and explorable, from the core, to the hub, battery and screen. (Having tried it in One Education's Sydney office, this thing is super easy to put together.) Modularity also means the customer or school can choose a new operating system if they wish, whether Android, Linux, Windows or Chromium OS.
One Education's Infinity OS offers apps like ScratchJr, which helps kids learn to code, as well as Google Classroom.
"The aim is for people to hold onto this for a decade, and as time goes on, upgrade these modules as their needs change," Srikhanta explained. "The whole idea is to not lock people into our idea of the world." Schools can also be set up with charging racks to solve the power point problem, and One Education will help get their Wi-Fi off the ground.
Currently, the price is US$249 (A$343) per unit, and One Education aims to ship them in September, 2016. They're also running an Indiegogo campaign to help get the project off the ground. It has currently raised 40% of its US$50,000 flexible goal.
Accessible technologyMany companies boast their technology is accessible, but One Education is taking it to a new level.
OLPC's XO laptop was purpose built for classrooms, Srikhanta pointed out, but there were still a lot of screws in the device that didn't let students get at the guts of the tech. The Infinity, on the other hand, allows kids to easily take it apart right down to the screen, and learn how a computer is built in the process.
"We also wanted each of these modules to be explorable and, if need be, repairable," he said. "Our promise is it will never cost more than US$100 (A$138) to upgrade the technology."
It's uncommon for a company to encourage anyone to take their technology apart. Srikhanta chalked up that attitude to fear of copycats, but emphasised that's not one of One Education's concerns." The reasons why we're doing it is very different," he said. The startup wants to reduce the longterm cost of technology, as well as encourage kids to repair the devices themselves.
Having come to Australia as a refugee from Sri Lanka, Srikhanta said his experience means he sees the Infinity as a tool to help achieve parity in education — something that can benefit society as a whole. "It's about creating opportunities for everyone," he said.
"By giving more people opportunities, we have more opportunities to solve the world's biggest challenges."
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Source: The Infinity is a tablet kids can take apart right down to the motherboard
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