Airtel's 'Each One, Teach One Day' to spread internet literacy in India

Bharti Airtel, a global telecom service provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today organized ‘Each One Teach One Day’ - an industry first initiative aimed at driving internet literacy in India and contributing to the nation’s larger digital inclusion agenda. As part of this, Airtel’s network of 1.4 million retailers, 20,000 on-the-field executives and 15,000 employees across a total of around 1,800 towns pledged their support towards the cause of widespread internet awareness in India, and spearheaded this movement as ‘internet ambassadors’ who dedicated the entire day to make people internet literate.

"According to estimates, India is the third largest in the world when it comes to internet subscribers and boasts of a whopping 250 million internet users. While the sheer scale of the market indicates growth in absolute numbers, India’s internet penetration stands as low as 25% when compared with countries like USA and China that stand at 85% and 46% respectively. Digital literacy can play a truly transformational role in enabling the lives of millions in India and help our country realise its potential towards becoming a knowledge driven economy”, said Srinivasan Gopalan, Director, Consumer Business, Bharti Airtel.

Recently, Airtel had launched its ‘One Touch Internet’ WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) portal designed to help first-time users to discover the internet easily and see-try-buy a host of popular services (including social networking, videos, online shopping and travel bookings) through free tutorial videos and trial packs. “With over half a million callers daily, our recently launched ‘One Touch Internet’ has seen tremendous response from people across the country and validated India’s deep interest in learning how to use the internet on their mobile phones. Like we saw the mobile device grow become the default way of making voice calls, we firmly believe that going ahead, more and more Indians will to enjoy their first-time internet experience on their mobile phones. We envisage an internet-empowered India in years to come and encourage every internet-aware Indian to contribute their bit to our ‘Each One Teach One’ agenda by initiating someone into the exciting world of the internet”, added Gopalan.

With initiatives like ‘One Touch Internet’ and ‘Each One Teach One Day’, Airtel is working towards introducing more and more Indians to internet, make wireless internet a reality and bridge the digital divide. From wired to wireless, 2G / 3G, fixed line / DSL, MPLS connectivity to now 4G LTE services – Airtel offers a wide array of data services for customers across the spectrum (including SMBs as well as global enterprises) and is uniquely positioned to leverage its deep market understanding towards accelerating internet adoption in India.