UPES celebrates ‘Digital India Week 2019’ by empowering Rural Community

By OUR STAFF REPORTER

Dehradun, 29 May: The School of Computer Science, UPES, organised ‘Digital India Week 2019’ by launching a ‘Digital Empowerment Campaign’ from 24 to 27 May in villages around the Bidholi and Kandoli campuses of the University. The activities of the campaign endorsed the ‘Digital India Programme’ of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and a knowledge economy.

Briefing on the event, Arun Dhand, Senior Director, Public Affairs, UPES, shared that the School of Computer Science (SCS) conducted this event each year to promote digital literacy and empower people with the knowledge of development and e-governance applications. “The USP of this year’s celebrations was that all activities were organised outside the UPES campus boundaries amid the residents of 4 villages – Bidholi, Dunga, Kandoli and Paundha,” he stated.

Sharing details of the activities, Dr Ajay Prasad, Associate Professor & Head – Department of Computer Applications, said that a ‘Digital Empowerment Booklet’ was designed and printed for distribution among the village residents during the event. The booklet consisted of information on ‘Digital India’ initiatives along with details and links of 46 e-governance applications launched by the central government for the benefit of citizens. The information spans health; hygiene & cleanliness; human resource; national scholarships portals; life certificates; law; immigration; e-payment; e-panchayat; safe use of ATM Cards and many more. “Over 150 students from BTech – 1st Year and 15 faculty members of the Computer Science Engineering joined hands to inform, educate and engage with the villagers on awareness about the Government of India’s Digital India initiatives,” said Dr Prasad said. The ‘Digital Empowerment Booklets’ were distributed among the residents of all the four villages. The students also presented colour crayons to the children and pocket diaries to the elders in the villages and answered queries on the e-governance apps.

Besides Dr Ajay Prasad, the ‘Core Committee’ of this event comprised Ankit Vishnoi – Assistant Professor, Department of Systemics; Pankaj Badoni – Assistant Professor, Department of Virtualization; Shahina Anwarul – Assistant Professor, Department of Systemics; Tripti Misra – Assistant Professor, Department of Systemics and Dr Inder Singh – Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Applications from the School of Computer Science, UPES. Over 900 individuals were covered under the event.