I have a confession to make.. Ive been a pathetic son.. Though Ive been associated with the online space for over 4 years now but Ive not been able to teach my dad (who is about 62 years old now) how to even surf the internet. I completely take the blame for this. Sometimes we as kids forget our duties towards our parents and teaching my dad how to surf the web has been one such duty Ive neglected due to various reasons (excuses)!
One of the excuses is that a lot of patience is required.. I mean a LOT! About the same amount of patience that my dad wouldve needed when he taught me how to walk.. But I guess Ive never had that much patience. So I was pleasantly happy when I heard that National Internet Exchange of India in a tie-up with Sify has launched a course on how to surf internet.
This course is priced at Rs.125 and would be taught through the 2000 odd Sify cybercafe chains and it would be a 10-hour course. I think this is great news! Not only coz my dad can now learn how to surf but because 1000′s of people like him can. There are two kinds of people one who don’t have a computer and have never used one. This could be because of their financial status or like in my dad’s case he just had a mental block against technology and at his age its anyways difficult and slow to pick up new things.
This would also increase the usage on the web. Yes broadband numbers suck right now but even if the number of people who do have computers at home (like me) have more family members who surf more often then that would help the internet in a big way. Also it would bring a different demographic of 50+ age on the web which would only work wonders for the web.
NIXI is planning to expand this project to reach 100,000 citizens by the year-end. I think we should all support this program as its benefic. Thumbs up to sify and NIXI for starting this program. A much needed initiative.
This is great news! Believe me I completely understand your guilty feelings as i feel the same! My mom and dad both are going to be happy wid the news.
If this really works… it means good news for the marketeers/ advertisers.. they will have an entire new segment to market their product to, which in turn means more budget allocated for internet and boom for all the companies which are online… practically a new wheel is being invented… lets see how fast it starts rolling!
It was very difficult to teach my grandfather to check pnr status.
Looks like a good initiative, first it was Google Bus and now this one..Nice to see Indian Companies coming forward in such activities apart from their regular business.
-Himanshu Sheth
Hey Rajiv!
Nice post and nice graphics – me thinks – would have made sense if you had shown an elderly person on the mouse
Hey buddy,
Gonna tell my Dad bout this for sure.
Thanks for the update.
Cheers
Hemant M
Nice initiative by SIFY and National Internet Exchange of India.
I think a similar stuff should be done for the computer literacy also.