WHEELS Global Foundation and Spoken Tutorial- IIT Bombay organised a workshop on Moodle LMS for faculty members and teachers of Shree Kaljibhai R. Katara Arts College, Shamlaji, to enhance teaching methodology. / Deepika Chopra

As the digital world advances, millions of IT jobs remain unfilled due to a shortage of skilled workers. Training opportunities are largely limited to urban, high-income areas, leading to a growing skills gap in economies – developed and developing. Accessibility, quality, and affordability are some of the key areas.

Quality instructors are scarce, and non-English learners face language barriers. The Spoken Tutorials (ST) project aims to break down these obstacles, offering the world affordable digital education for just a few pennies.

Developed through pioneering research by Professor Kannan Moudgalya at IIT Bombay, Spoken Tutorials (ST) are innovative self-learning solutions using highly engineered audio-video tutorials accessible anywhere at minimal cost. It takes learnings from movie-making – one of the best mass-market communications endeavors.

They empower learners to independently acquire Free and Open Source Software skills. With over 22 language versions, ST covers a full spectrum of IT topics, from basic computing to advanced programming and application development. Learners can also take end-of-course tests and earn certificates, boosting their employability.

Currently, 1500 English STs on various topics are available while 15,000 STs are available including the dubbed versions, and over 8 million learners across 6,000+ schools, colleges and universities worldwide have benefited from them.

STs are designed for use with or without internet access, and their compact file size allows for mass distribution on inexpensive storage devices. After the initial development investment, STs can be scaled infinitely at almost no additional cost, making them accessible to learners anywhere in the world.

WHEELS Global Foundation (WHEELS) sees great potential in scaling this innovation further. WHEELS leverages ST technology in Health Spoken Tutorials to train new mothers in newborn nutritional health.

In collaboration with the National Rural Health Mission, this initiative provides cost-effective, nationwide breastfeeding training for frontline health workers, reaching over 10 million mothers and babies in rural Madhya Pradesh, as well as several districts across Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Meghalaya. The training consists of contextualized 10-minute self-learning modules available online and offline in over 20 languages.

As part of WHEELS’ Smart Village project, STs have been introduced to rural colleges and engineering institutions. For instance, WHEELS launched a Digital Literacy Lab at Shree Kaljibhai R. Katara Arts College in Shamlaji, equipped with ST courses. Workshops have also been conducted at the college, including a recent two-day session on Moodle LMS for faculty and teachers to improve teaching methodologies.

WHEELS is taking ST to numerous locations in Gujarat, West Bengal, and Karnataka, along with school networks like Navodaya and Eklavya, looking now at new domains to support – advanced STEM Education for middle-school to high-school kids in topics like space, astronomy, robotics, AI, in partnership with Space-i-fic.

WHEELS is also extending STs to Africa, where countless youth stand to benefit. This technology has also been used to train 150 inmates at Nashik Central Prison in computer literacy and office productivity tools via LibreOffice.

India, with over 1.5 million high schools and 50,000 colleges, holds a significant opportunity to enable more than 100 million students, many from low-income or rural backgrounds, and help them thrive in the digital world. WHEELS invites support to expand this transformative IT solution, offering affordability, ease of use, and access to even the most remote and underserved areas.

WHEELS leverages its Pan IIT alumni network, including corporate leaders, CSR associations, IAS officers, NGO partners, and various professionals, to drive rapid scaling, create awareness, and support the initiative. By deploying these programs, we aim to achieve the shared objectives of Technology-driven transformation of India’s 20% of the “Rurban” population by 2030 (i.e. 180m+ people), in support of India’s vision of becoming a developed economy by 2047.

We urge all of you with an interest in supporting this large underserved segment of India’s future to join WHEELS’ efforts by visiting the WHEELS WEBSITE and Getting Involved section which provides numerous ways for you to be part of our journey. 

The author is the Marketing and Communications Manager, WHEELS Global Foundation.

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad)