[Kabar-indonesia] Singapore firm snags robotics deal in Indonesia

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Business Times [Singapore]
Thursday, November 2, 2006

Local firm snags robotics deal in Indonesia

Winston Chai

A SMALL local firm is making big waves in Indonesia's
educational market with a flagship deal to provide robotics
training to more than 40,000 students in the country.

Homegrown company IT Leisure and Education has inked a
contract with BPK Penabur, one of Indonesia's largest school
foundations, to incorporate technology and robotics syllabus
into the curriculum of the 120 schools under its charge.

The agreement, worth around $500,000, is the largest
contract the firm has won since its inception in 2003.

Tinkering with robots and coding the computer programs
needed to make them work is something that is typically
associated with engineering education in tertiary
institutions.

However, IT Leisure and Education specialises in extending
such training to students from secondary schools and below.

In BPK Penabur's case, the foundation is making robotics an
integral part of its school curriculum.

This stands in contrast to the scenario in Singapore where
most schools are actually offering robotics as a part of
their Co-Curricular Activities.

'Robotics has been a big thing for years in the US, Europe
and Japan, but it's still a novelty in Asia. Interest is
beginning to pick up in Singapore and Asia in the last few
years,' said the company's chief executive officer Daniel
Heath.

He was speaking to BizIT at the sidelines of the ongoing
Global Entrepolis 2006 conference.

According to Mr Heath, robotics education is an effective
tool for learning Mathematics and Science and it also
promotes creative and critical thinking.

However, the high costs of robots mean that it would be hard
for younger students to afford one of their own but that is
set to change.

Through a three-year tie-up with Australian firm Microbric,
IT Leisure and Education will now offer a range of
educational robots that are significantly cheaper than the
competition, the most well-known being Lego with its
Mindstorm offerings.

'We are more than 50 per cent cheaper than competing robots.
Every student can now own one,' he claimed.

For example, Mr Heath said the company's entry-level
offering, called 'The Scorpion' will be sold at $149, while
a more sophisticated version called 'The Viper' is priced at
$229.

In Singapore, IT Leisure and Education is offering these as
part of its robotics training programmes for schools like
Raffles Institution, Anderson Primary School, Yio Chu Kang
Secondary School, Pasir Ris Secondary School and Xi Shan
Secondary School.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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