In Pune, Dell, in partnership with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has already launched ‘The Climate Eduxchange’ — an IT-enabled initiative to improve environment education. The project that covers five other cities — Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mohali — will target class V-XI students in 50 schools of each city.

Joe Kremer, general manager for Public Sector, Asia-Pacific and managing director, ANZ, Dell Inc. said in India, the company was looking to replicate the success it reaped in countries like Mexico and Australia, where it focused on the education sector. “Since Pune is an education hub in India and as Dell too is focusing on this sector, it becomes an important market for Dell. We will be focusing on long-term partnership with educational institutions for providing adequate technological tools and classroom connectivity. The ‘classroom-connect’, a project aimed at digitisation of classrooms, will be launched soon in the country.”

Though Dell officials said it was difficult to estimate the exact market size of this particular segment, according to a forecast by Springboard Research, the education sector will step up IT spending from an estimated $356 million in 2008 to $704 million in 2012, reflecting an annual growth rate of 19 per cent in this period. Investment will largely go in the areas of networking, basic infrastructure and implementing IT security solutions — areas where Dell is set to leverage.

Neeraj Gupta, general manager for Public Sector, Dell India, said with ‘classroom-connect’ the company would be providing the infrastructure for setting up of digital campuses across schools, colleges and universities in the country. “We will be targeting about 50,000 private schools across country and hundreds of colleges. We will be supplying notebook, laptop, audio-visual equipment and interactive e-learning solution to enhance computer labs and for classroom connectivity.”

According to IDC, Dell presently has a 11 per cent share in the education sector in the country.

Gupta said that as part of its philanthropic initiative Dell had also invested $ 2.7 million in India for ‘Youth Connect’, in association with 11 NGOs, for providing IT-enabled education for underprivileged children.