Sun's McNealy pitches for Curriki

MUMBAI: For years Sun Microsystem co-founder Scott McNealy delivered sales pitches to keep cash registers ringing. However, during his recent visit to Mumbai, he was seen pitching for a project which could transform Indian education

Curriki.org, a side project co-founded by McNealy in December 2006, is an initiative to meeting social cause through open source technology, majorly promoted by Sun in the world.

Curriki, a word created from "curriculum" and "wiki" of the popular online encyclopeadia Wikipedia.com, is a Web site allowing users to add and modify content and claim a piece of authorship. The website allows parents, teachers and students to post and download free lesson plans, sample tests, book chapters and other materials.

"We have been talking to educational institutes in India to realise the potential of open curriculam. It lowers the barriers to basic educational material as more students get access to the internet," McNealy said.

The concern is more about developing countries where network infrastructure is sparse, and Curriki is encouraging local governments to boost network spending and adopt the open-source education model. The idea stuck him three years ago while helping one of his sons with a third-grade science project. McNealy struggled to find basic information online about how electricity works, and thought free academic resources would help kids and teachers find information while saving school's money.

And now relieved of the CEO's responsibility, McNealy, the full-time Chairman of Sun Microsystems, keeps this side project close to his heart. "The idea is to ensure that no child is held back for the lack of access to education," he said.

In the last five months, Curriki.org has developed a community of 35,000 members and over 3,000 posts.

He asked the Indian research communities, educational institutes and universities to donate to the website and develop more educational content. The site has strict copyright protections, requiring intellectual property releases for all the original material it publishes.