The British Council launched THE GREAT TALK series in India on 11 September, 2015 which is aimed at motivating young Indian students to plan their careers effectively by interacting with distinguished personalities from the UK. THE GREAT TALK platform offers students a once in a lifetime opportunity to expand their horizons, meet with prominent educationists and explore new career directions.

The inaugural talk of this series was delivered at Saveetha University in Chennai on 11 September, 2015 by eminent Professor Sugata Mitra on ‘The Future of Learning’.

Professor Sugata Mitra, shared the story of his decade long journey that resulted in the ‘School in the Cloud’. He began his talk by discussing the events that led to the ‘Hole in the Wall’ (HIWEL) experiment. In 1999, Professor Mitra embedded a computer within a wall in an Indian slum in Delhi for children to use freely. The experiment aimed at proving children could be taught computers very easily without any formal training. He termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The experiment has since been repeated at many places and has left a mark on popular culture. Incidentally, this has also inspired Indian Diplomat, Vikas Swarup, to write his debut novel Q&A which went on to become the Oscar-winning film of 2009 - Slumdog Millionaire. 

Further in the talk, Professor Mitra took the audience through his thirteen years of experiments in children's education, which brought forward a series of startling results, such as, children can self-organise their own learning; they can achieve educational objectives on their own and can read by themselves. Finally, he spoke about the most startling result of them all: groups of children with access to internet can learn anything by themselves.

Using the TED Prize, Professor Mitra has now built seven ‘Schools in the Cloud’, glimpses of which were provided in the talk.

Professor Mitra offered his views on THE GREAT TALK series, “THE GREAT TALK is a delightful initiative by the British Council to engage, encourage and inspire young students. My talk today was focused on understanding how we can better prepare our children for the future. We need to design a futuristic learning methodology, which facilitates children to embark on intellectual adventures driven by big questions. In 2006, Newcastle University, UK gave me the opportunity to help improve schooling across the globe and provided me with the support I needed for holistic research. Indeed, the UK welcomes the brightest and best international students at world-class universities. I believe UK Education offers students a sea of opportunities who are looking to make a mark for themselves.”

The lecture was attended by approximately 1100 students and professors who thoroughly enjoyed attending the talk.

“It was informative. Many children are benefited. The idea of school on cloud was good and innovative. It was astonishing to see the video where village students of Tamil Nadu acquired self-confidence through ‘Hole in Wall’ technique.” PL. Valliammai; III Year, Electronics & Computer Engineering at Saveetha University

“The lecture was too good and interesting. The methods and steps taken for education are simply superb. The idea of Granny technique and its positive side really exhilarated us.” Jency J; III Year, Electronics & Computer Engineering at Saveetha University

“The Cloud Class, Hole in the Wall, Granny techniques in school education have made us think, how a teacher should think out of the box using modern advancements to make the new generation of kids understand a given topic.” Manoj Nallanathel, Asst. Prof., Dept of Civil Engg, Saveetha University

This multi-city initiative will also be organised in New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata with other highly accomplished and inspiring UK alumni over the next few months.

To know more about School in a Cloud kindly visit the website www.theschoolinthecloud.org/