Interview By Dr. F.Y. Gan, Executive Vice President

E Ink Holdings Inc. is a pioneer and commercial leader in ePaper technology. F.Y. Gan, Executive Vice President of Sales Center shares his vision about the future of education and how their products and solutions are contributing in improving the quality of Indian education system.

1. What is your vision of transformation of education in the next 2 decades?
The fast-growing trends of Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are not only transforming the industries, businesses and our daily life into the era of digitalization, but also the education sector.

In the next 2 decades, E Ink is seeking a positive development of the concept called “Smart Education”. With the assistance of technology, more and more education material and learning resources, including the content of text books, exam papers and assessment books will be transforming into digital format. These education digital contents will also be integrating in learning oriented devices, such as eSchoolbags or eLearning devices. Artificial Intelligence plays an important role in smart education in terms of analyzing students’ learning performance against teaching materials in order to optimize teaching and learning efficiency. Every student will also have equal education opportunity, potentially reducing the variation in education quality through the advancement of technology.

2. How do see your company’s role in actualizing this vision?
I see three areas where E Ink is able to help with actualizing this goal. E Ink’s ePaper mimics reading and writing experience of traditional paper. And the eLearning devices designed with ePaper is generally much lighter than commercially available tablets. The last one would be E Ink’s ePaper is very low power consuming which prolongs the eLearning device operation period for each charge.

Even though E Ink’s ePaper is a piece of electronic component but it provides the most natural way for reading. Unlike the LCD display on tablets, this emits blue light directly into students’ eyes and causing physical discomfort and potential chronical illness. ePaper mimics the experience of traditional ink on paper to produce images on eLearning devices. Just like reading and writing on paper without the risk of future eye damage.

Students can also write on ePaper display. For students, writing is good for logical thinking and memorizing. For smart education platform, every stroke may be recorded and analyzed for higher learning efficiency. ePaper is very light in weight. Indian students typically carry 6~7Kg of school bags, such weight which potentially causes backaches, neck pain and skeletal deformities for students. eSchool bag is one solution to solve the issue and eSchool designed with ePaper is even a lighter choice.

Last but not least, digitalized educational content reduce the use of paper in text book, assessment books and exam paper and improve the environment.

3. Where do you see this change happening?
This transformation of education is everywhere! Education sectors in India has been using tablet as eSchoolbag and assessment device for improving learning efficiency.

As the leading innovator of electronic ink technology, E Ink continues to collaborate with partners and supply chain around the world to build smart education ecosystem for providing students and teachers an easy-on-the-eyes eLearning environment.

4. Which innovation (in respective sector) in the last financial year has caught up your attention?
In 2017, the development of IoT and AI, encouraging the development of smart city and smart education. With the benefit of easy-on-the-eyes reading experience delivered by eReader and providing a reading plus realistic digital writing experience by eNote, E Ink is dedicated in the development of “Smart Paperless Space” in the office, profession in law, banking and medical and as well as educational sector.

As an example of combing the concept of Smart Paperless Space with AI in education sector, E Ink collaborated with smart education content and platform providers to launch single and dual-screen hybrid (bottom ePaper with top LCD) eNote devices in China. These devices allow students learn in class, and also act as digital coaching assistance for students to review curriculums after school. This easy-on-the-eyes eNote device can be used to display customized digital contents and serve as a communication medium between students and teachers during interactive learning. In addition, it can be used for preview and review of the teaching materials; the homework can also be customized for each individual to enhance the overall learning effectiveness.

6. Where do you see the role of Private sector (the sector you are targeting) in education in India?
Parents and students in general tend to choose to enroll private education institutions, such as coaching schools and training centers to enhance their learning performance in India because of the high competitiveness among Indian students to get into high quality tertiary institutions. By this phenomenon, E Ink is seeing the Private sector as one of the main character to push the wave of digital transformation in education sector in India.

7. How do see your product offering as a benefit for education institutions?
As mentioned, the benefit of “Bi-Stable” and “Reflective ” of ePaper display will help the education institutions to enable the concept of smart education. By integrating eLearning software solution, educational ePaper devices, such as eReader and eNote can provide customized learning courses and interactive learning models, which give students the ownership of their learning path and provide student’s learning path and outcomes to teachers as a real-time reference to revise curriculum correspondingly. From that, ePaper-equipped education oriented devices will help students increase their learning efficiency and provide every student an equal education opportunity, potentially reducing the variation in quality of education.