PC manufacturer Lenovo on Thursday launched a vernacular computing initiative, ‘Matrubhasha’ (Mother Tongue) in the Indian market.

The new initiative will help the school children to gain computer skills in their mother-tongue, without depending upon English.

As a part of this project, Lenovo said that it will donate 150 brand new Lenovo H series desktops, pre-installed with a vernacular computing software application called ‘Lookeys’ to 38 Akshara Foundation libraries in 35 government schools and three Urdu government schools in Karnataka.

This will benefit 20,500 school children across the state.

Mr. Ramprasad Lakshminarayanan, Vice President, Transactional Consumer Sales, Lenovo India said, “The Matrubhasha project is a grassroots level initiative, in helping children gain computer literacy so that they’re able to put this technological advancement to their education’s advantage, without depending on English as a medium. We hope this advantage exposes them to opportunities that would have otherwise been restricted to English-aware children only.”

Lenovo considers that the language barrier is a major barrier in spreading computer knowledge across government schools, where English is not widely used.

The lookeys enabled PCs will permit children to learn computing programs in 12 different languages. The different languages include English, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam, Konkani and Punjabi.

Moreover, kids can also make use of applications such as chat, word processing, PowerPoint, E-mails and Web surfing in the language of their choice.

Meanwhile, Lenovo India staff will also give 3-5 hours monthly to teach the librarians in these schools, who will in turn impart computer education to the students.