Media Release: Tech-savvy college provides an Orkut-style private social network for students

MEDIA RELEASE

Tech-savvy college provides an Orkut-style private social network for students

June 13, 2009

Lords Universal College, a Maharashtra Board & Mumbai University affiliated institution, is the first college in Mumbai to offer a private Orkut-style social network as a "virtual" hang out place for its students. This network, affectionately known as MyAdda, is an online community where students and staff can interact, keep in touch with their friends, share photos, arrange events and meetings and blog.

Lords Universal is also the first college in Mumbai to provide, in partnership with Google, Inc, an official college email ID to all its students and staff. This account comes with a 7.3 GB mailbox (webmail services), Calendar (shared calendaring), Talk (instant messaging and voice/video chat) and Docs (online document creation & sharing).

Ritu Patel, the Managing Director of the college gives it a thumbs up while adding, "Our students were anyway very active on public social networks like Orkut, Facebook & Myspace. MyAdda is a private and safe community where students can connect with existing college friends and also find new ones who share common interests and similar tastes. Google was an easy choice to be our official email and collaboration service provider, as it is already the favourite search/email/chat service for most students and staff."

Says Nishant, a student, "MyAdda is both easy and amazing! I can chat, blog, share pictures, set themes, play games and just generally rave and rant about stuff. Just yesterday, I was looking for a study partner to work on accounting problems with and found one in a few minutes. I'm sure college events and "days" will be a lot more fun now. The campus anyway has wi-fi all over - I can even post messages from my mobile phone, which is way too cool!"

Jesus S. M. Lall, the CEO of the Universal Education Group adds, "At Lords Universal, students pick up laptops from the computer centre like they once picked up books from the library. Why just LUC, today's students in general are very tech-savvy - and Lords Universal is designed to serve this ne(x)t generation of learners. The ne(x)t generation is students who were born after 1994 – students who have never known life without the internet or mobile phones. To them, SMS, IM and Google are verbs, not applications. Students of today expect such services from their college and it's up to us colleges to live up to those expectations."

Students are issued official accounts on the college's @lordsuniversal.edu.in domain. Invitations to MyAdda are sent only to registered college students.

"The college’s official email and social accounts are powerful tools to stay in touch anywhere, anytime. We are already beginning to see some learning benefits. Initially, there were some concerns about safety and privacy, but after months of demos and trials, we managed to convince the college management about the benefits of such a system", says, Jimi Gajab, the IT manager of the college.

About Lords Universal College

Lords Universal College, a part of the Universal Education Group, is a Maharashtra Board & Mumbai University affiliated college. Conveniently located opposite Malad East railway station, LUC provides over 20 Junior & Degree College programs in fields like Commerce, IT, Management, Science, Mass Media, Biotechnology, Hotel Management, Education and Law. The college puts a great deal of emphasis on technology-enhanced-learning.

More information about the college is available at http://www.lordsuniversal.edu.in

Contact: press [at] lordsuniversal.edu.in