World's largest, Rural IT Quiz-2007 launched

Bangalore, Aug 31 (UNI) An estimated two million school children in rural areas of Karnataka will participate in the eighth edition of the 'Rural IT Quiz-2007' the world's largest IT Quiz programme, intended to popularaise IT beginning on September 10.

Organised jointly by the Karnataka IT and BT Department and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the programme was mainly aimed to popularaise IT education in the rural areas in Karnataka, was formally launched here today.

Speaking to newspersons M N Vidyashankar, Secretary Dept of IT and BT and Science and Technology Karnataka Government, said that in this year's IT Rural Quiz over 20 lakh students drawn from over 10000 schools and junior colleges would take part. The quiz was open for students from class 8 to 12.

"The Rural IT Quiz is an effort to spread the awareness, application and advancements in IT at grass root levels. The IT quiz is experiencing growing popularity every year". The state government on its part was spending over 15 lakhs to the programme in which the IT giant TCS and also the ITPL was actively involved.

Mr Vidyashankar informed that the quiz programme designed to be held in four rounds and the first phase of the quiz would be held at schools and college levels on September 10. In the next level, the district level Quiz Programme would be conducted on 24th September in each district and the top 50 teams would be selected for the Regional level quiz competition. The regional competition will be held in six locations at Gulbarga, Dharwad, Davanagere, Tumkur, Hassan and Udupi.

He said that the quiz would conclude at the mega IT event 'BangaloreIT.in 2007' scheduled to be held from October 29 in the city, he said.

He also informed that the impact of the Rural IT Quiz was tremendous and the toppers in the earlier edition of the Quiz programme were found pursuing education in IT and IT related courses, he said.

Mr N G Subramaniam, President TCS Financial Solutions said that the Quiz programme was designed to expose more students to the IT sector and help find a solution to manage the shortage of human resources in the sector.

UNI