Amrita RITE- Rural India Tablet Education was launched in Uttarkashi, a district of Uttarakhand state in northern India on 2 February 2014. AmritaCREATE developed this project with the aim of educating rural and tribal people in India through tablet technology. The Amrita RITE project was deployed in Uttarakhand as part of Mata Amritanandamayi Math’s relief and rehabilitation project in Uttarakhand and Amrita Self-Reliant Village Programme (Amrita Swasraya Gramam), a programme to adopt 101 villages throughout India.

The inaugural function was held at the Uttarkashi Centre of Mata Amritanandamayi Math, Devidhar. Ms. Hema Kausani, J.K.M Foundation, Smt. Mamta Bhat, village head (Pradhan) of Astal Village, Sri. Om Prakesh Gupta, Principal of Himalayan School of Life, Swami Chetan, Vivekananda Foundation and Sri. Sudheer, AmritaCREATE team member, were present for the inaugural event which was attended by over 75 people from Astal, Dunda, Gunal Gav, Bakda, Singoni villages of Uttarkashi district.

The programme started with the lighting of the lamp by Ms. Hema Kausani, J.K.M Foundation. Sri. Sudheer, AmritaCREATE team member explained Mata Amritanandamayi Math’s Amrita Self-Reliant Village Programme and relief and rehabilitation project in Uttarakhand. He introduced Amrita Rural India Tablet Education (RITE), designed and developed by AmritaCREATE, to combat illiteracy by implementing after school tutoring and adult-literacy programs in rural and tribal villages of India. The tablet based education programme was formally launched by presenting a tablet computer to Smt. Mamta Bhat, village head (Pradhan) of Astal village by Sri. Om Prakesh Gupta, Principal of Himalayan School of Life.

The village heads (Pradans) of Dunda and Astal villages were felicitated at the function.  Sri. Vishal, ashram village co-ordinator for self reliant village programme, delivered the vote of thanks and brought the inaugural session to a close. This was followed by a demo session of educational applications on tablet, planting a tree on the ashram premises and cultural events.

A cluster of five villages in Uttarkashi (Astal, Dunda, Gunal Gav, Bakda and Singoni) was selected for the deployment of the Amrita RITE project. The educational content in the tablets covers basic literacy through value based content and includes material stressing health and social awareness. The tablets will be available for use bykindergarten students, school going students and adults in these villages. Currently, fourteen Anganwadi students, twelve adults and twenty-three school going students for tuition classes attend the Amrita RITE program at Gunal Gav, Uttarkashi.