Strengthening Connections to Education

Ideated by Mahima Chillakanti, Sanika Sahasrabudhe, Nika Shroff, Karthik Siva, Ravi Trivedi, Neal Spencer & Vivek Swaminath

This past semester, the Initiatives team have continued working on the offline education platform, Kolibri, that the team introduced in the village of Jamid last summer. They hope, in the next trip, to introduce Kindle Fire tablets with the pre-installed Kolibri software to the Ekal school in the GRC as well as the Ekal Vidyalaya in Jamid. After speaking with several prominent individuals in the village and learning that the students have relatively limited access to technology due to lapses in electricity, internet connection, etc., the team hopes that the tablet-based offline software will allow students to continue learning despite these difficulties.

The software will serve 2 primary purposes. Firstly, the software will incorporate more assessments targeted at 4th and 5th standard students in the Ekal Vidyalaya, providing Ekal and Project RISHI with essential information on what students’ academic strengths and weaknesses are. Secondly, the software will also introduce math-and language-related video content (largely sourced from Khan Academy India), question banks, and more. This content will allow older students in the 8th-10th standard to learn independently outside of school, unencumbered by lack of internet or electricity access.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the team has continued to work on this initiative by adding a more diverse range of curricula as well as more in-depth content for students using the software.

SC Project RISHI wishes to thank all of its donors for providing the funds to purchase these tablets for the students in the GRC and Jamid.