Providing learning opportunities in the most modern way, even in backward areas, is the aim of eVidyaloka
In 2011, Satish and Venkat, two employees of Microsoft, decided to do something about improving the quality of education in the Indian public school system. Their passion, to use technology to solve social challenges and empower the community as a whole, resulted in the setting up of eVidyaloka, a not-for-profit organisation.
eVidyaloka focuses on working with local communities to own the digital classrooms, inspiring and empowering volunteers to contribute from wherever they are, by providing standardised lesson plans and teaching aids for a consistent learning experience for children.
The eVidyaloka model brings people with passion together from across the globe, leveraging the power of technology, and enables access to high-quality teachers for children in remote villages of India. It is focused on children in the age group of 10-14 years (6th to 8th grade), delivering live interactive classes in the local medium, through a powerful partner ecosystem. eVidyaloka’s objective is to enable every child to understand and apply the concepts, by ensuring accessibility and affordability of high-quality teachers and teaching resources. It is a delivery model developed with a strong conviction in connecting people through technology which is scalable, replicable and sustainable.
The respective state board curriculum is being taught by the volunteer teachers, using rich digital media content like videos, visual flows, pictures, activities, etc. This helps the child to visualise and understand complex concepts. It also inspires the child to participate in the teaching-learning process with a higher level of involvement.
Today, 25 centres are operational on ‘My eVidyaloka’, across three states (Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) through over 180 teachers. The teachers work across 76 cities in 13 countries delivering quality education in regional languages to over 1,200 children in India. An open content platform, WikiVidya, is being promoted, where volunteers build standardised lesson plans in vernacular languages and aggregate the digital resources and aids for a consistent learning experience for children.
In the academic year 2015-16, eVidyaloka plans to establish a scalable, replicable and sustainable service delivery platform aimed at reaching 2,500 children across 50 villages in five states (adding Karnataka and Telangana). It hopes to have over 400 active volunteer teachers. WikiVidya has the potential to reach one million teachers in India. eVidyaloka’s long-term plan is to mobilise 100,000 volunteer teachers in the next 10 years with a potential to change the lives of 1.5 million children. The online classes happen in a digital classroom through a variety of communication technologies—wired broadband, WiMax, 3G mobile and smart routers.
Over 70% of the volunteer teachers involved are qualified professionals in various fields, post-doctorates, home-makers, retired teachers, graduate students, PhD students and working professionals in India and abroad. One of the key challenges is availability of uninterrupted power supply; this has been addressed by providing a captive UPS unit for the digital classroom. Over the next two years, eVidyaloka’s ambition is to expand from the current reach of 50 villages to over 200 villages in seven to eight states and, eventually, cover the entire country. “What sustains us is the passion of the participating volunteers and what continues to inspire is the enthusiasm of the children to learn,” says Venkat.
The NGO’s website provides detailed guidelines for volunteering or donating towards its activities. Do take a look.
eVidyaloka Trust
608, 27th Main, 2nd Stage,
BTM Layout, Bengaluru
Karnataka 560076
Phone: +91 080 40903939
Every state has retirees who can add meaning to their life by volunteering just a few hours a day. If they own a computer, they need not even step outside the house to do this work.
I sincerely hope that this effort spreads to all states, particularly the poorest.