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North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and QUALCOMM Announce Mobile
Education Pilot Project:
CAROLINA and SAN DIEGO — March 27, 2007 |
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K-Nect Empowers Students to Learn Using Advanced
Mobile Technology RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA and SAN DIEGO — March 27, 2007 — The
North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, QUALCOMM Incorporated (Nasdaq:
QCOM), a leading developer and innovator of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
and other advanced wireless technologies, and Digital Millennial Consulting (DMC)
today announced Project K-Nect , a pilot education program using Smartphones
with advanced mobile broadband technology to deliver educational material to
high school students to improve test scores and education in North Carolina.
The Project K-Nect program was announced at CTIA Wireless 2007 in Orlando
today and will be discussed in detail on March 29 at the CoSN 12th Annual K-12
School Networking Conference in San Francisco, Calif.
“Project K-Nect gives us a tremendous opportunity to use a device as
common as a cell phone to help close the digital divide,” said Frances Bradburn,
director of Instructional Technology at the NC Department of Public Instruction.
“Students sometimes see their school work as unrelated to current developments
and technologies or uninteresting to altogether. We hope that by using current
technology in a new way, we can re-engage students and help them reach important
academic goals” .
Project K-Nect is designed to create a supplemental resource for
secondary at-risk students to focus on increasing their math skills through a
common and popular technology – mobile Smartphones. Ninth graders in several
public schools in North Carolina will receive Smartphones, giving them access to
supplemental math content aligned with their teachers’ lesson plans and course
objectives. Students also will have the opportunity to communicate and
collaborate with each other and access tutors outside of the school day to help
them master math skills. The Smartphones and service will be free of charge to
the students and their schools due to a USD1 million grant provided by QUALCOMM,
as part of its Wireless Reach™ initiative.
The project’s goals are three-fold: to increase math achievement as measured
through state assessments and improved classroom performance; to better engage
students who have struggled with math; and to narrow the current digital gap by
providing supplemental learning opportunities through mobile Smartphones. |
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QUALCOMM is highly motivated by how our technologies can improve people’s lives
and education through connectivity,” said Shawn Covell, senior director of
International Government Affairs for QUALCOMM. “This project will provide voice
and data services to students with limited or no Internet connectivity, and
enable learning communities among students and their teachers through advanced
wireless services on Smartphones. By focusing on math, Project K-Nect will play
an important role in addressing the nation’s math and science skills deficit. We
hope this program will demonstrate how technology can play a role in improving
test scores and education, as well as empowering students to develop advanced
math skills”.
The project will target approximately 250 students who have limited home access
to the Internet, qualify for free or reduced-price school meals and have below
average math performance. Safeguards will be in place to assure that students
are able to communicate only with authorized users and that they observe
acceptable use policies for the Smartphones. Students will be provided with
Smartphones enabled by QUALCOMM’s CDMA2000® 1xEV-DO technology that will allow
them to access mobile broadband services with a maximum peak data rate of 2.4
Mbps. Participating schools will be selected through a grant application process
this spring.
For more information, please visit www.projectknect.org, send an email to
info@projectknect.org,
call 1-919-386-0341 or contact QUALCOMM at
wirelessreach@qualcomm.com.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction provides leadership to 115
local public school districts and 100 charter schools serving approximately 1.4
million students in kindergarten through high school graduation. The agency is
responsible for all aspects of the state’s public school system and works under
the direction of the North Carolina State Board of Education.
QUALCOMM believes access to advanced wireless voice and data services improves
people’s lives. The Company’s Wireless Reach initiative supports programs and
solutions that bring the benefits of connectivity to developing communities
globally. By working with the Company’s partners, Wireless Reach projects create
new ways for people to communicate, learn, access healthcare and reach global
markets.
QUALCOMM Incorporated (www.qualcomm.com) is a leader in developing and
delivering innovative digital wireless communications products and services
based on CDMA and other advanced technologies. Headquartered in San Diego,
Calif., QUALCOMM is included in the S&P 500 Index and is a 2006 FORTUNE 500®
company traded on The Nasdaq Stock Market® under the ticker symbol QCOM.
Digital Millennial Consulting (DMC) is a cross-sector consulting firm
specializing in the education technology sector. The company serves both public
and private entities by delivering focused solutions for schools, state and
local educational agencies, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit or
forprofit organizations. DMC’s core mission is to effectively develop and
implement technology strategies and systems to maximize academic achievement for
our millennial students.
QUALCOMM is a registered trademark of QUALCOMM Incorporated. Wireless Reach is a
trademark of QUALCOMM. CDMA2000 is a registered trademark of the
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA USA). All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners. |
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ATLANTA, GEORGIA (March 9, 2007: |
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Revolutionary solution streamlines data sharing for local and state education
agencies
Educators can now get all the information they need through a single system
called the D3M Education
Connection™. Launched on March 1, 2007 at the Microsoft Training Center near
Atlanta, Georgia to an
invitation-only audience of state IT decision-makers, a demonstration of the D3M
(Data Driven Decision
Making) Education Connection validated real-world, real-time capabilities
designed to solve the many
challenges faced by local and state education agencies in their efforts to meet
federal and state reporting
mandates such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. |
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The D3M Alliance™, a collaboration of Choice Solutions, Edustructures,
ESP
Solutions Group, Microsoft, and TetraData, was formed 18 months ago to accomplish this specific goal—implement
five companies’ software
applications in an environment that allows single sign-on and electronic sharing
of data across all
applications.
Currently, education agencies are expected to manage large volumes of data held
in various software
applications within their technology architecture. This means aggregating,
validating, analyzing, and
reporting individual student performance data, as well as being able to rely on
the quality of data in order
to make important decisions that effect students, teachers, administrators, etc.
The D3M Education
Connection improves the efficiency of these tasks by being able to share data
across agency departments
instantaneously. Plus, the impact for educators is that the multitude of
software applications they must use
can now be accessed through one portal.
Further, the D3M Education Connection uses technology that ensures security and
privacy, giving users
immediate, authorized access to disparate information that is directly
applicable to their role (e.g.,
student, parent, administrator, teacher, etc.). A key feature of the D3M
Education Connection—the single
sign-on environment—simplifies access for all users and addresses multiple
facets of the education
process—from tracking student performance data, to building personalized
curriculum for the individual
student, to creating a “connected learning community” where educators can share
lesson plans and other
teaching tools.
“I wish I would have had this solution 5 years ago [have HW explain why this
would have made a difference],”
said Howard Woodard, former CIO of the Georgia Department of Education who
attended the demonstration,
“education agencies will realize monumental benefits from this type of
collaboration between vendors.”
Solving all the technical issues to get five companies’ software to work
seamlessly together in real time
required the successful integration of several national, open standards.
National standards, such as the
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the Student Interoperability
Framework (SIF), and numerous
technical standards allow the D3M solution to be replicable across all 50 state
environments.
“The D3M Education Connection solution represents our collective vision for
local and state education
agencies and is just the beginning of what this collaboration between education
technology vendors will
accomplish,” said Rich Seidner, Microsoft’s executive director of education, “we
are committed to further
enhance the capabilities of the D3M Education Connection and to find more ways
to dramatically improve data
management in education.”
About the D3M Alliance: The D3M Education Connection solution represents the
collaborative efforts of the
D3M Alliance members—Choice Solutions, Edustructures, ESP Solutions Group,
Microsoft, and TetraData. The
primary vision of the Alliance has been to provide K-12 education agencies with
a comprehensive solution that
addresses enterprise identity management, disparate systems interoperability,
vertical reporting, and
longitudinal data management.
Choice Solutions is an end-to-end global Enterprise IT Service and Solutions
provider. Their focus is on
quality solutions that meet the needs of education agencies’ objectives. They
are a proven leader in
providing Enterprise IT Services and Solutions, Enterprise Infrastructure
Solutions and Services, Innovative
Solutions, and Enterprise Software Solutions and Services. For more information,
visit
www.choice-solutions.com.
Edustructures is the recognized leader in SIF integration solutions for the
PK-12 education market, making it
possible for market-leading Student Information, Library, Transportation,
Cafeteria, and Directory solutions
to reliably and securely share data in real-time. Through its SIFWorks®
integration platform, comprehensive
professional services, and business relationships with technology providers and
educators, Edustructures
connects the systems that power education. For more information, visit
www.edustructures.com.
ESP Solutions Group is a data consulting and technology firm specializing in
PK-12 education data systems.
ESP has advised all 52 education agencies as well as the U.S. Department of
Education on the practice of data
management. ESP’s State Report Manager™ (SRM), a fully automated reporting tool
that coordinates state data
submissions, allows data errors to be resolved before they are sent to the
state. ESP is regarded as leading
experts in understanding the data and technology implications of the No Child
Left Behind Act (NCLB),
Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN, EDfacts), and the Schools
Interoperability Framework (SIF). For more
information, visit www.espsolutionsgroup.com.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software,
services and solutions for
businesses, government, and education. Working closely with worldwide education
communities, Microsoft has
developed technologies, tools, programs, and solutions to help address education
needs. Microsoft is
currently engaged in a longitudinal data project with the state of Florida
entitled “Sunshine Connections.”
Microsoft’s vision is to ensure educators, administrators, parents, and students
realize their full
potential. For more information, visit www.microsoft.com.
TetraData is the nation’s leading provider of data warehousing, analysis, and
reporting solutions for K-12
education agencies. TetraData’s solutions help educators achieve and sustain
high performance by
facilitating data driven decision making. TetraData solutions capture,
integrate, and store data from
administrative and educational systems and deliver comprehensive and customized
data analysis and reporting.
With TetraData solutions, educators can easily and accurately assess the factors
that drive performance at
the state, district, building, and individual student levels.
TetraData located
in Greenville, South
Carolina, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Follett Software Company. For more
information, visit www.tetradata.com. |
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Choice Solutions Enters Data Center
Business
Launches Dedicated Practice
New practice to offer education programs for raising
awareness amongst IT practitioners
Hyderabad, January 20, 2007 - Choice Solutions today announced its foray into
the world of data centers by launching its data center practice – Choice
Datacenter Division. This new practice will provide data center assessment,
design, deployment, and management services as well as audits.
Choice Solutions is also offering education programs to raise awareness of data
centers and their significance to businesses amongst IT managers who are usually
assigned to data center projects, without any prior exposure and experience.
Announcing the new practice, Mr. K. V. Jagannath, CEO, Choice Solutions Limited,
said, “This launch is a culmination of 15 years of our data center experience
catering to several verticals, including the highly demanding IT/ITeS vertical.
We have a cumulative install base of over 300 MW in provisioned backup power for
computing environments spanning half a million square feet.”
Choice Solutions is now extending its value-additions into other core data
center areas such as precision A/C, captive power, and structured cabling. “We
have a highly differentiated model which is a USP, based on vendor-neutral and
client-centric approach. With this approach, we are confident of providing
scalable, efficient, manageable and yet cost-effective data center environments,
with an emphasis on quality,” added Mr. Jagannath.
Data centers are an increasingly complex mix of network-critical physical
infrastructure (NCPI), IT infrastructure, and disaster recovery/business
continuity. With the rising complexity, utilization rates are decreasing and
power per rack is increasing. Furthermore, NCPI investment is far outweighing IT
costs. As a result, business agility is getting hampered and the total cost of
ownership (TCO) of data centers is rising dramatically.
“It is imperative that IT managers who are getting roped into data center
activities understand these trends and the implications on their business so
they can make prudent decisions,” says Ratnakar, AVP of Choice Datacenter
Division. “We have designed our education programs to precisely cater to this
imminent need in the marketplace. These programs will provide a 360-degree
understanding of data centers, key trends, and the way forward with networked
data centers.”
The first installment of the Choice Solutions’ Data Center Educational Program
is being held at Alankrita Resort in Hyderabad on 14-16 February, 2007. Further
details of the program are available at
http://www.choice-solutions.com/datacenter.html.
About Choice Solutions:
Founded in 1991, Choice Solutions provides end-to-end IT solutions and services
with an emphasis on data centers, information management and packaged software
licensing and implementation. Our value added professional services include IT
consulting, software development and standards-based audits. We are proud to
partner with industry leaders such as APC, EMC2, Symantec/Veritas, Tandberg
Data, RedHat, Microsoft and Adobe. With a customer base of over 3000 companies
spanning all verticals and recognitions from various industry groups, our
leadership has been widely acknowledged.
www.choice-solutions.com
http://www.choice-solutions.com/datacenter.html
Media Contact
Dr.Pavan Gundepudi (VP.Marketing)
Choice Solutions Limited
Plot # 21, Road # 71
Jubilee Hills
Hyderabad 500 034
Andhra Pradesh, India
Phone: +91 40 23547600
Fax: +91 40 23546400
Mutual PR
Persis Arni / Puneet Rai
040-32511556
Hyderabad |
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Choice Solutions is participating in India's premier Banking and
Financial Services event - The 3rd Banking Technology 2007 conference
and exhibition & The Banking Technology Awards 2006. This year’s theme
is aptly titled: ‘Innovation in Banking Technology.’
Read on and learn how you can win Apple iPods!
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Date: |
January 31, 2007 |
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Venue: |
Hilton Towers, Mumbai |
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Ravi Kumar C., CTO, Choice Solutions, is speaking on the hot subject
"Designing to Managing New Generation Data
Centers"
at this conference. Ravi has extensive experience in the
financial industry. He was a key member of IT infrastructure teams at
Merrill Lynch (Japan), Morgan Stanley (Japan, USA), Credit Suisse First Boston
(USA). Click
here
to view his detailed profile.
The 2 members of the audience who ask the best questions during the Q/A at the
end of the presentation will win one Apple iPod
each! |
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Choice Solutions is also setting up a stall at the event. Come visit us and
participate in our lucky draw. The winner will receive an Apple iPod. |
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Contact Dr.
Pavan Gundepudi VP Marketing, Choice Solutions. |
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Choice Solutions is proud to announce its arrival on the DataQuest top 200 information technology companies of India for 2004. Choice Solutions has been designated a top 200 infotech company from over 1000 Indian infotech companies polled by DataQuest. This is a major accomplishment by
Choice Solutions as this survey includes many industry leaders such as Microsoft, Oracle, HP, Cisco, IBM and Samsung.
Choice Solutions attributes its growth to its broadened services offering which
include Data Center Services, Infrastructure and Systems Management and Software
Services. With these expanded offerings Choice Solutions has become a true
end-to-end IT service provider for its clients.
Choice Prides itself on its continued growth but realizes that it could not
achieve these goals without its 3000+ strong Client base.
“Choice Solutions has strived to be an industry leader in strategic consulting,
Architecture, Design, Development and Maintenance of business critical
applications. This designation along with the continued support of our client
base shows Choice’s commitment to quality, customer service and robust
technology solutions are providing high value to our customers”.
- Srinivas Kallakurchi, President of Choice Solutions North America |
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Founded in 1991 by a group of IT professionals, Choice Solutions has strived to become a leader in the IT revolution. Our customer centric approach coupled with best of breed technology solutions has allowed us to become a leader in the IT field.
Choice Solutions has been providing software solutions to companies and government organizations for more than 12 years. In that time
Choice Solutions has faced and met the technology needs and business process requirements of a wide variety of organizations including Government Agencies, Fortune 500 companies and small to medium enterprises. Choice is a truly dynamic service organization that can handle a wide variety of technological and operational challenges that face today’s organizations. Our focus, today as always, has been to provide the optimal value to our customers.
Choice’s web address is
www.choice-solutions.com |
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Since 1982 Dataquest has a spotless image of non-partisan,
credible and useful information for vendor and user communities alike, DATAQUEST
has become an inseparable part of the Indian IT community. A leader in the true
sense of the word, DATAQUEST’s editorial news and commentary is trusted for its
information and integrity.
Referred to as the Bible of Indian IT, DATAQUEST has constantly endeavored to
highlight the major issues faced by the industry and users, publishing in-depth
analyses of market trends and fast changing technologies. As the pioneer and
leader of IT media in India, the magazine has consistently kept track of new
developments in the IT industry and the corresponding information needs of the
corporate user.
Dataquest's web address is www.dqindia.com |
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Project K-NECT Press Release