TERI, DELL launch “The Climate EduXchange Initiative” in India

MOHALI - Dell in partnership with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) today announced the launch of “The Climate EduXchange Initiative”, an IT-enabled Climate initiative to improve environment education in schools across India. The primary objective of this partnership is to create a motivated force of students, who through technological advancements are aware of and concerned about the environment and its associated problems.

The campaign aims to raise awareness and understanding about climate change issues amongst students and teachers of all disciplines. It will focus on findings of IPCC to disseminate knowledge to students and teachers and promote engagement on these issues with students in other parts of the country.

It also aspires to familiarise all to the importance of the internet and the computer as powerful tools for knowledge and motivate them to take action and bring about desired change in the environment.

Talking about the youth’s role, Dr. RK Pachauri, Director-General TERI, said, “Youth of today carry out extensive search for knowledge through the internet. The spread of Information Technology in India has dramatically altered the scenario for education on a vast range of subjects. Given the importance of climate change for the entire human race and the stake that citizens of the 21st century have in dealing with this major challenge, TERI and Dell have jointly launched The Climate EduXchange Initiative. This would be a unique programme for creating awareness and understanding on climate change by which schoolchildren and students can take the future into their own hands and find solutions to the rapidly increasing threat of climate instability.”

Elaborating on DELL’s vision, Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, VP and MD Dell International Services, said, “Considering the large youth population in India, it is imperative to educate them about issues that govern the future of this planet. This initiative is aimed at empowering the youth with tools and platforms for knowledge sharing that will help them build a better future. The power of youth is certain to bring about a change - and that change needs to start now.”

The Climate EduXchange program is in harmony with Dell’s YouthConnect initiative, which has an underlying vision of developing a generation of young people who can leverage technology resources to unleash their highest potential.

The initiative is designed to ensure that youth all over the world have access to relevant education and information technology.

As a part of the Youth Connect campaign Dell plans to increase overall corporate giving to a level of one percent of company pre-tax profits by the beginning of the company’s fiscal year 2011, which begins in February 2010.

The programme will reach out to six cities-Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Mohali and Pune. It will include children from classes 5 to 11 from 50 schools in each city. They will be divided in five clusters and one school from each cluster will be identified as the nodal school (Knowledge Centres).

The Climate EduXchange Initiative will harness the power of ICT (Information Communication Technology) providing a platform for students from identified parts of the country to share information and ideas across disciplines, about how climate change is affecting them and how they can do their bit in bringing about change.

Lauding the initiative, Ibrahim H Rehman, Director Social Transformations, said, “The youth are not only the decision makers and leaders of tomorrow but, more importantly the custodians of environment and the natural resources in this planet. We hope that the EduXchange initiative will encourage the students and youth to take a pro-active role in reversing climate change.”

Sandeep Gulati, Site Director, Dell Mohali said, “Climate change is a sensitive issue today that has gripped the attention of many. Building awareness and educating students about the same needs to be supplemented with a robust platform that facilitates dialogue and discussion. The ‘Climate EduXchange Initiative’ with TERI is an effort to engage with students through a powerful medium like the Internet and promote an environment that is conducive to learning and knowledge sharing.”

Young people offer a powerful and unique perspective on climate change. Their engagement with the issue is, however, long overdue.

The Climate EduXchange programme intends to reach out to students, teachers, and the community in general to spread awareness about this key issue. (ANI)