Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group has announced its collaboration with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation, a global alliance to promote e-learning for children. Under the initiative, Reliance ADA Group’s flagship company Reliance Communications would provide internet connectivity, network backbone, logistic and support to the OLPC initiative in India, using its network that would cover over 25,000 towns and 6,00,000 Indian villages by March 2008.

Tina Anil Ambani announced the collaboration and also the launch of OLPC’s first Pilot in India under which school children in a tribal village at Khairat (near Karjat, Maharashtra) have been provided with OLPC XO laptops and teacher training for incorporating the new way of imparting education. Reliance Communications is providing the connectivity to these internet learning devices.

“Reliance Communications’ endeavours to provide robust and reliable telecommunications and information services across the country including remotest locations yet uncovered by any other telecom network. Our data network would enable information access to countless schools and children across the 25,000 towns and 6,00,000 villages, said Sumit Chowdhury, CIO, RCOM.

RCOM and OLPC will be working with Government agencies, NGOs, Content developers, translators, teaching community and project managers to create successful ecosystems.