Kerala equips school kids with Rasberry Pi to encourage coding

26th February 2015
Kerala equips school kids with Rasberry Pi to encourage coding
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy hands over a Rasberry Pi kit to A. Ananthapadmanabhan of SNV Sanskrit School Paravur, Ernakulam district at a function on February 15 2015

Kochi, February 25, 2015: The Government of Kerala has launched an “Learn to Code”  to instill  coding culture in school students: It has begun distributing 2500 Rasberry Pi kits statewide across 14  districts.
The programme is being  implemented jointly by Technopark Technology Business Incubator (T-TBI) IT@School and Startup Village. Sudents  will receive basic training and would be encouraged to experiment with the Pi,  starting April 2015.
The distribution of the Raspberry Pi Kits was  launched  on February 21, 2015 at   North Paravur, by Chief Minister  Oomen Chandy.The Raspberry Pi is a low cost, credit-card sized computer. The Raspberry Pi kit  comprises a Raspberry Pi B+ board, Enclosure, 8 GB SD card, HDMI cable, HDMI to VGA cable, USB keyboard and USB Mouse. Rs 1,08,09,950 has been incurred by the state for the procurement of 2500 kits  @ Rs 4,324 a kit.
The concept of the ‘Learn to Code’  drew inspiration from Keralite and  Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan awho  announced a programming contest for the schoolchildren who received the Raspberry Pi kits. The best programmer from each district would get a cash prize of Rs. 20,000 and the State-level winner could take home Rs. 2,00,000.
Meanwhile RPI Kerala is a new group formed to promote Rasberry Pi India and linux education in the state. It is  an  open group, any one can participate.