Leading Edge!

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Leading Edge Agastya International Foundation imparts science education to children in villages, but more importantly it is nurturing creativity and grooming tomorrow’s leaders of rural India

Agastya managing trustee Mahavir Kumar (left) with chief of operations K Thiagarajan and operations head Sai Chandrashekhar (right)

“Agastya has exceeded my expectations with the number of people it has reached” Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, investor,

Jhunjhunwala is Agastya’s biggest donor

N NARASIMHA MURTHY

:: Hari Pulakkat

R

Andhra Pradesh government — on how to take decisions on her education, finance and other family matters. She has explained to her mother the importance of learning, and told them that they would have to work hard till she finished her education. A few years ago, she persuaded her father not to sell their cow, explaining how it was an investment for the future. Now they have four cows, and earn `12,000 a month selling milk, with which they fund Sravani’s education at the expensive Sri Gayatri Junior College.

Sravani came across Agastya International Foundation as a sixth grade student in the village of Shantipuram in Andhra Pradesh. Her parents are poor.

When she was a baby, her father had found it hard to make enough money to make ends meet. Studying in a poorlyequipped government school, she grew up as a timid child till well into middle school. Her fortunes changed, she says, after she was exposed to the foundation.

Agastya was by then rapidly developing into one of the largest experiments in the world in science education. Founded in the year 2000 by Ramji Raghavan, a former investment banker, Agastya had

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set up a large campus in Kuppam with well-equipped labs. Its mobile labs went into village schools in the district and beyond, making children do experiments with their own hands. Like everyone else, Sravani enjoyed the experiments, and looked forward to the day when she would go to the Agastya campus or see a mobile lab. Then she was chosen as a young instructor leader by Agastya.

Agastya had conceived the Young Instructor Leader (YIL) programme in 2007. Children who show exceptional ability to learn are trained by the founda-

tion and then made to teach science to other children. The foundation has over 7,000 Young Instructor Leaders spread over south India and parts of north India.

The programme was a game-changer for many students. “I lost my fear once I became a young leader,” says Sravani. “I became confident about going on stage and speaking.” The increase in confidence was not just in public speaking. She also learned how to organise her life.

Now she is the lead strategist of the family, advising her father — who works as a field verification officer in the

Other young leaders have similar tales to share. R Azad, a XIIth standard student, organises cleaning programmes in his village, and is working on an idea to curb drunken driving. M Maheswari, earlier a sixth standard dropout, came back to school after contact with Agastya and is now an undergraduate student in commerce, and also manages a night learning programme in her village. Many students have gone on to do well for themselves, studying in professional colleges and looking forward to good careers.

“Even if Agastya fails to teach them science,” says VK Aatre, former scientific advisor to the defence minister and now a trustee of Agastya, “it is worth it because it gives the children confidence.”

Aatre has been associated with the

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Agastya in Numbers foundation from 2004, when he provided Raghavan with ideas on how to get science inside young minds. Later, when he retired and came back to Bengaluru, Aatre got more involved with Agastya and became a trustee. He influenced the foundation to start science centres, and to spark creativity in children rather than to teach them complicated science. According to the Agastya management and supporters, nurturing creativity in children has longterm benefits, especially in rural areas. “We need many solutions to the country’s problems,” says Gururaj Deshpande, entrepreneur and philanthropist who is one of the big donors for Agastya.

“And in the impoverished communities, the solutions have to come from the grassroots.”

A solution from Delhi policymakers or top-notch labs around the world may not work in rural areas, according to Deshpande, because villages have no capacity to absorb them. Professionals and decision-makers who come from the rural areas, after growing up with the problems, look at things differently. “When the Young Instructor Leaders of Agastya grow up,” says Deshpande, “they will have the capacity to understand the problems well.” Many young leaders choose to remain in villages and work towards a living there.

The statistics of Agastya are already impressive. It works on an annual budget of `30 crore and has 850 employees. It has 138 mobile lab vans, 50 labs on bikes, and 60 science centres. Its main campus in Kuppam is spread across 172 acres, and gets 500 young visitors from eight to 10 schools every day. It has 800 teachers, including 280 night-school volunteers.

Founded: In 2000 by Ramji Raghavan, a former investment banker Main campus in Kuppam:

172 acres Annual budget:

`30 crore Employees:

850 Teachers:

800

including 280 night-school volunteers

Agastya campus has sophisticated equipment that children can use freely and play with. At `5-40 per child per exposure, the foundation’s cost of reaching children is extremely low

Mobile lab vans:

138

Agastya has scaled well over the years, reaching eight million children cumulatively. It now reaches 1.5 million children every year, apart from 2,50,000 teachers.

“Agastya has exceeded my expectations about the number of people it has reached,” says investor and philanthropist Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, a big supporter of the foundation.

50 Science centres: 60 Labs on bikes:

Number of children reached so far:

8 million Number of children it reaches annually:

1.5 million Number of teachers it reaches annually:

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2,50,000

“Inspiring teachers is the best way. Because teachers have a multiplier effect” NR Narayana Murthy, founder, Infosys,

The Infosys Science Foundation and Infosys Foundation are donors to Agastya

It has had support from some of the best of minds in the country too. Aatre has especially been instrumental in getting the Indian scientific community to spend time with Agast ya. He had aroused the interest of his former boss and president APJ Abdul Kalam, who had been visiting the Agastya campus and asking Ramji Raghavan for a while to start a programme in Bihar. About four years ago, Raghavan got a call from Kalam, saying that he would sponsor a programme in Bihar.

Agastya conducted a science fair there in the year 2012 that reached about 24,000 students and 1,100 teachers.

Aatre had also got senior scientists from other organisations to provide ideas, build models and create systems for teaching and training. R Krishnan, former director of the Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE), helped develop some of the initial ideas. Another early intellectual supporter was PK Iyengar, former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. M Shivakumar, former chief designer at HMT, created a large number of models for experiments. Revathy Narayanan, a doctorate from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and now a social worker, developed all the teacher’s training modules and documentation.

Raghavan himself had a wide network, and got help from a large number of philanthropists in the country. Investor Jhunjhunwala is Agastya’s biggest donor, committing `50 crore over 10 years. The State Bank of India is the second biggest. Gururaj Desh-

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pande is a large donor through his foundation. AM Naik, executive chairman of Larsen & Toubro, has made substantial contributions as an individual. So have NR Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murthy through the Infosys Science Foundation and Infosys Foundation. The Murthys’ donation is specifically for training teachers.

“Inspiring teachers is the best way,” says Narayana Murthy, “because teachers have a multiplier effect.”

The schools around Kuppam, where Agastya has been operating a 172-acre campus for a decade and a half, have now accepted Agastya as being part of their lives.

Agastya is one of the largest experiments in the world in science education and it has been sought by well-known educators for experiments on educational innovation Agastya has many instructors, but it also trains teachers and young students to teach other children. Young instructors are now a large force, and are having a multiplier effect on communities

them `3 crore, enough money for 30 such bikes for three years.

As Agastya’s name spread across the world, it has been sought by well-known educators for experiments on educational innovation. The Franklin W Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts started a programme with Agastya on project-based learning. Agastya is beginning to use Raspberry Pi, the low-cost computer developed

by Raspberry Foundation in the UK. It is also using the Foldscope, the ultracheap cardboard microscope designed by Manu Prakash, assistant professor at Stanford University. Hayagreeva Rao, professor at Stanford Business School, works with Agastya on a project about design thinking.

This 100-school pilot will explore ways of ideation, designing a problem, prototyping and so on. “As they grow,” says Rao,

The campus works with about 80 schools in a radius of 25 km, as students in these schools make several visits to the campus every year. In addition, mobile labs go to the schools with science kits that students can play with. The campus is also an ecological experiment, with a resident ecologist carefully selecting each plant and creating a thriving ecosystem. Students who go there come back with a heightened sense of awareness about ecology, and have been creating pressure on their farming communities to be more ecologically sensitive.

Shining Big & Bright Gudlinayanipalli school, about 10 km from the campus, is in one the poorest regions in the district. It has just one dilapidated building, and that too built partly with help from Sudha Murthy. Many children come to school here without breakfast, as their parents leave for work early. The headmaster, Ram Mohan, says that children get too hungry by mid-morning and then would wait eagerly for their mid-day meal. This school has done enough to get first prize in the district for the Inspire model-making award, given by the department of science and technology. “The interest of my students in science has gone up,” says headmaster Ram Mohan, “since Agastya teaches them about what is important in their own lives.”

After Agastya became prominent in the area, children from government schools

have been faring well in national science competitions. Two students have won places among the top ten in last year’s Design for Change challenge. In the last five years, 17 students have won a prize in the Iris National Fair, including silver and bronze medals. Two years ago, the foundation won the Google Impact Challenge for a technology-driven lab on a bike, which can be driven by the teacher to the villages and used for instruction in science. It gave

“In the impoverished communities, the solutions have to come from the grassroots” Gururaj Deshpande, entrepreneur,

Deshpande is a big donor to Agastya via his foundation

“organisations must learn to drop things that made them successful. Agastya has learned to do that well.”

Agastya has reached eight million children, and so can claim to have achieved scale. However, in a country of 164 million children, it still remains small. “I am not sure how scalable is Agastya’s model,” says Narayana Murthy. “You need a certain amount of teachers, equipment and so on.

But I am sure they will find solutions to these problems.” To reach all over the country, the foundation may have to expand 100-fold. It is nearly impossible, but its recent history provides glimpses of what can be achieved if they do so.

Sparking Curiosity One of the aims of the foundation is to spark the student’s curiosity in the world around us, and to set him or her on the way to a lifetime of discovery. “We are trying to create early in children the fundamental ability to abstract,” says K Thiagarajan, chief of operations at Agastya. In the process, the students also learn about the world around them and acquire leadership abilities. They also have an impact on the communities in which they live. “We see children from Agastya teaching other children in the village,” says D Krishnamurthy, sarpanch of the villages around Cheekatipally near Kuppam. As they grow up, they teach their parents about computers and the internet, the basics of electricity and so on. The truly inspired students have an even bigger impact, questioning the values and practices of the community.

All those who see the students at work are impressed by their creativity. SV Ranganath, former chief secretary of Karnataka, decided five years ago to take a day off and visit Agastya’s Kuppam campus. Agastya hadn’t then started operations in Karnataka, and its managers were prodding the state government for help in starting work in the state schools. Ranganath says he was taken aback by what he saw. “I saw some fifth grade students playing in the math lab,” he says. “I asked them how they could prove (a+b)2 = a2 + b2 + 2ab.” One student quickly drew a square with sides of a+b, and proceeded to prove the result on the board. He had not learned the proof in school. “Many such students exist in the villages,” says Ranganath. “Imagine what we can achieve if we provide them opportunities.” !