Ipswich: Education reseller Getech clinches £1m pioneering deal to provide personalised tablets to University of East London students
Sam Stinton of JS Group; Dusty Amroliwala OBE deputy vice chancellor and chief operating officer at the University of East London (UEL) and Guy Watts, managing diirector of Ipswich-based Getech - Credit: Archant
An Ipswich-based firm is celebrating a £1million deal to supply electronic equipment to a London university.
Getech, an education reseller, recently supplied 4000 Samsung Galaxy Note tablets for a major new initiative at the university, in collaboration with Samsung, JS Group and Kortext.
The contract follows months of talks between the parties.
The pioneering scheme, the first of its kind in the UK, could be adopted throughout the higher education sector. All new UEL starters will be provided with a personalised Samsung Galaxy Note tablet which will arrive pre-loaded with items including their core textbooks, links to university resources and a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
The tailored, lecture-ready learning devices offer students an induction pack with access to all of the university information and support files, along with course materials and textbooks, and a means for taking notes and for completing assignments.
Getech managing director Guy Watts said: “This has been a really exciting, and at times, technologically challenging project to be involved in. Getech supply thousands of tablets and notebooks each year to universities and students throughout the UK, but 4000 devices is the single largest deployment we have handled.
“Every device has been configured with UEL’s chosen applications and URLs, giving access to calendars and digitised content, not an insignificant piece of work.”
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He added: “This project shows how technology can make a real difference to the learning environment. Just think, as a 1st year student at UEL, you no longer have to carry heavy text books around with you. They are digitised onto your device, plus you have a range of UEL services to guide you through your course . UEL are visionaries in this field of student resources.”
Getech, Samsung and JS Group are working with other universities to deliver similar solutions, he said, and the firm expects this contract to be the first of many.
Getech, which employs 95 staff at its Ipswich offices, has seen turnover soar in recent years.
