Hole in the Wall

TED Prize for Hole in the Wall experiments 

Imagine a new world of inexpensive learning where children from rural India and from urban slums get the same opportunity to work with new technology as children in richer areas do. Dr Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University dared to imagine such a world. Widely known for his Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiments, Dr Mitra is the winner of USD 1 million TED Prize 2013. Initially, he set up an internet-connected computer in a hole dug up in a wall in a slum in Kalkaji, New Delhi. Through a hidden camera, he observed that the slum children, purely out of curiosity, freely played around with technology. Gradually, without any supervision, totally on their own, without any formal training, they learned how to use it and how to go on-line. Then, they taught each other. Dr Mitra termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). He has now set up HIW kiosks in Africa, Australia, Latin America and Asia.

His experiment demonstrates that groups of children, irrespective of any class or cultural background, can learn to use the computer and the Internet on their own in free public spaces even without any knowledge of English. In the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other if they are motivated by curiosity and peer interest.