Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, on August 13, 2020 gave information on Twitter about the development of a 2G-friendly mobile phone application, called ‘Wise App’ by two friends from IIT-Bombay, namely, Mubeen Masudi from Kashmir and Bilal Abidi from Lucknow. The app is a video interface, which allows students and teachers to solve the problem of scheduling, makes teaching and assessments over the Internet easier, and makes the experience as close to a real classroom as possible. The application is extremely user-friendly, completely free of cost, and comes without any advertisements. Its usage does not require one to be tech savvy. Anyone can just download the application from the Play Store and start using it right away.
As per the developers, it works on 2G and enables teachers to schedule and conduct live classes on ZOOM without the any problem having to share meeting IDs and passwords. Additionally, it enables teachers to send and receive assignments, facilitate discussions, share material, and receive automated attendance reports, all at one place.
A unique feature of the app is the way it tracks attendance. There is no upper limit for enrolment but this app tells how many students are attending. There are other apps also, but Wise has the feature of listing of those who attended the class with duration of time. The app aims to ‘democratise education’ by empowering teachers through technology. The developers now hope their creation will reach all corners of the country where connectivity and slow Internet speeds are a problem.