Rangeet

Our Organization

Project Rangeet Private Limited

What is the name of your solution?

Rangeet

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

Facilitator-app with measurable, play-based Social Emotional & Ecological lessons/resources designed for learner variability, wellbeing & stewardship.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

RANGEET HAS DEVELOPED AN APP FEATURING A MEASURABLE, PLAY-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL & ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE (SEEK) CURRICULUM, LESSONS & RESOURCES TO SOLVE FOR INEQUALITIES & VARIABILITY IN LEARNING:

• Due to the pandemic, students are facing essential social-emotional learning loss that is critical during their formative years (Education Week, December 2021). The percentage of children in learning poverty has potentially risen from 53% pre-pandemic to 70% (The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery). According to a December 2021 joint report by the World Bank, UNESCO & UNICEF, Covid-19 related school closures could result in a lifetime earnings loss of $17 trillion for this generation of students (unesco.org). As children re-enter school, they are not in the frame of mind to learn (Rangeet). Andreas Schleicher (OECD) remarked that the communities that are recovering fastest from COVID-inflicted setbacks are those in which educators are being given the greatest flexibility to help their students bounce back.  Stephanie M. Jones (Professor of Early Childhood Development, Harvard Graduate School of Education) concludes that if we don’t solve the social-emotional loss suffered as a result of Covid-19, we will accelerate learning loss by simply focusing on academics.  

To make matters worse there has been a gap in the teacher/student relationship as well as relationships between students. These gaps need to be rebuilt & trusted relationships need to be reestablished.

• Most government education systems and low-fee private schools are under-resourced & overburdened. Employing outdated rote methods, they ignore individual needs, neither teaching children skills vital to navigate daily life nor preparing them for the future. This translates into many children falling behind. The number of children entering low-fee private schools is increasing across the developing world, with UNESCO estimating this number at about a quarter in 2018 (Global Schools Forum). Educators, policy-makers and governments are realising that children need a breadth of skills to keep up with the lightning pace of today. No matter what path they choose or culture they come from, they require a holistic combination of learning, literacy and life skills.

• Educational inequality is caused by multiple factors like income, race, religion, gender, language and geographical regions.  For example, according to the India Census 2011, 82% of boys are literate while only 65% of girls can read and write (www.gvi.co.uk). According to the International Labour Organization, 27% of Bangladeshi youths (aged 15 to 24) were not engaged in any form of education, employment, or training in 2018 (wenr.wes.org). Over half of the 800,000 Rohingya refugees are children, who are not receiving any formal education. 2019 World Bank data suggests 356 million children globally lived in extreme poverty. Covid-19 will only have increased this number. UN research states that close to 1.6 billion children were out of school by April 2020. Child labour/marriage and teen pregnancies have increased throughout South East Asia (The Diplomat) and South Asia (Aangan Trust, 2021). 

• Children in developing countries have limited access to digital technology/connectivity. Learning opportunities should not be dependent on digital access. By design, most social-emotional programs exclude the poorest/marginalised. For example, the Indian Ministry of Rural Development found only  8% of all Indian homes with children have computers with internet connectivity; 24% have smartphones (scroll.in). This 24% will only grow with time. Other developing countries show similar problems. Google states there are approximately 360 million internet users in South East Asia, with around 90% connecting via their mobiles. Connectivity costs are high for low-income households and infrastructure/services are unequally distributed across geographies (OECD/RMIT University). Edtech can bridge divides but only a small percentage of apps use smartphones (Central Square Foundation). 

• Education is often interrupted by the harmful effects of climate change, like floods, cyclones, storm surges and droughts. Children need to be educated about ecology and climate change, including the value of ecosystems such as mangroves. Climate change has started what may become the largest mass migration in human history.  For example, in recent years, riverbank erosion in Bangladesh has annually displaced between 50,000 and 200,000 people according to Scientific American. A World Bank report estimates that up to 14 million people in India migrated due to climate change in 2020.  Scientists predict that these conditions will worsen and trigger a mass exodus. By some estimates, rising sea levels could permanently submerge vast regions and displace millions of people while wreaking havoc on local ecosystems. 

• Climate change is a threat multiplier for the vulnerable, with, for example, an increased number of girls being forced out of school as a result of loss of livelihoods, floods, droughts, changes in rain patterns and so on.  Malala Fund research concludes that 4 million girls worldwide are unlikely to complete their education in 2021 due to climate change. This will rise to 12.5 million girls a year by 2025 if nothing is done to alleviate the effects of climate change. Girls' education can help tackle underlying gender inequalities and harmful gender norms that structure girls’ unique climate vulnerabilities. Girls' education can impact our collective capacity to address climate change.

These conditions maintain a vice-like grip on disconnected communities, creating disparities in opportunities, offering little to no solution for inclusion, erasing the possibility of progress.

What is your solution?

Human relationships are at the core of loving & learning.Through song & playful activities, Rangeet flexes our social muscles & prepares children to be tomorrow’s carers, thinkers & citizens.
- Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Rangeet is a mobile app for schools, families and communities (facilitators) to support the overall wellbeing and development of children aged 7-16. Only one device is needed to implement the program, which is used by the facilitator.

The app features a play-based Social, Emotional and Ecological Knowledge (SEEK) curriculum, as well as teaching-learning resources and activities, designed around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. SEEK supports existing curricula, is based on the science of learning and develops the skills and competencies necessary to thrive with the understanding that every child learns differently.    

Social-emotional learning includes the process of developing self-awareness, self-control and interpersonal skills vital to everyday life (Denham, 2003; Duncan, 2007).  Research links strong social-emotional skills to increased mental, social and academic outcomes (Elias, 2008) and weak social-emotional skills to negative behaviours, well-being or even neuropsychiatric disorders (Paus, 2008; Durlak et al, 2011; Kautz et al for OECD).  Development of such skills lasts into young adulthood (Mills, 2018), offering a prolonged window of opportunity for positive impact on individuals and communities (Kautz et al for OECD).  

Research by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and Lego Foundation  show that social emotional interventions and play can bridge educational inequalities and have the long-term effect of producing more compassionate, happy, calm, less aggressive adults leading to greater academic and job success, regardless of gender, race, religion, language, socioeconomic or geographical background. Children learn best through play & social-emotional skills are the building blocks vital in a world riddled with inequity & political division, exacerbated by the pandemic & climate change.

Rangeet’s app enables anyone to teach in any socioeconomic, geographic or cultural context, in-person or remotely, at home, in schools and/or communities, even in conflict zones and refugee camps. It contains tools that measure impact on children and collects feedback from facilitators. If taught in schools, Rangeet allows teaching to be shared between educators and caregivers, thereby alleviating pressure on the school system whilst fostering mutual responsibility between schools and communities.

Our outcomes are authentic and verifiable: facilitators and learners who go through the full SEEK curriculum experience 75 hours of consistent, in-depth and evaluated lessons, leading to sustained impact, building agency.  A search engine allows facilitators to choose lessons/activities to develop specific skills or augment the core curriculum in their context.

Empathy has guided and enabled human beings to thrive throughout history.  At Rangeet we connect the common strand of empathy for Self with those around us in our Societies, and to all life on earth in our Ecological systems. Developing this connection creates a virtuous circle and will drive a change in our relationships with each other and the planet. There has never been a more important time to act.

Our mission is to help facilitators prepare children to be better life-long learners and the global stewards of tomorrow. We do this by:

• Building measurable social, emotional and ecological competencies amongst children, youth and facilitators

• Reducing inequalities caused by differences in income, gender, race, religion, language, geography and digital divides and promoting true learning equity by including all learners in any setting: schools, communities or homes

• Working with existing learning systems by taking individual needs and creativity into account; teaching children skills vital to navigate daily life now and in the future

• Helping overburdened and under-resourced teachers and school systems

Rangeet is a science, research and evidenced-based solution founded on the science of learning: what children need to know and how they learn best.  

SEEK develops the following social-emotional skills: communication, collaboration, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence (collectively known as the 6Cs (Brookings Policy 2020, K. Hirsh-Pasek et al)). Communication skills are enhanced throughout the curriculum through interactive discussions and activities. We teach collaboration through activities like role play, team games, group singing and combined art projects that encourage social engagement and getting along with others. Our three content umbrellas are cross-disciplinary and can be used in social studies, geography, science, maths, life skills, values education, language, health and environmental studies, to name a few subjects. Further, children today have to navigate a vast sea of information to obtain accurate content knowledge and use their critical thinking skills. SEEK requires children, teachers and parents to constantly recognize multiple points of view, acknowledging problems that exist and evaluating evidence to solve these, both inside and outside the classroom.  Children are presented with challenges and encouraged to think of creative innovations and ideas to tackle these problems. SEEK requires children to play and apply what they know in experiments, activities and projects. Lastly, SEEK aims to enhance a child’s confidence, which we define as having perseverance, grit, resilience, positivity and a growth mindset. It teaches the above skills indirectly through the entire SELF Umbrella, but also directly through original stories such as “Don’t Change my Den Again!”, about four animal friends who succeed in finding a better life by exhibiting resilience, optimism, integrity and a growth mindset.

A Rangeet lesson is active with room for discovery and experiential learning through inquiry and reflection; consistently engaging  through music, art, storytelling, games and experiments; made meaningful through connections between a child’s own experiences and interests and thus new information is absorbed much faster; socially interactive with peer collaboration through exploring and playing together with just the right adult scaffolding and intervention; iterative with chances to form, test, and revise hypotheses about how the world works; and joyful. If children enjoy themselves performing the activity, they will gain both academic outcomes and executive skills, because of the positive effect during learning. These principles naturally emerge through guided play, in which an adult facilitates child-led playful activities to meet a learning goal.  

Rangeet can be taught flexibly by educators/facilitators:

• Full lessons can be taught from any of our nine modules (currently comprising 75 lessons and a library of resources) from our Self, Society and/or Ecology Umbrellas, 

• Individual activities can be chosen to help teach mainstream subjects in a joyful, play-based manner (eg. Science, Geography, English, Maths, P.E. etc.), or 

• Pandemic Recovery Activities conducted to help build resilience through joyful play, art, games, stories and song.

Monitoring, measurement & assessment tools built into the Rangeet app assist educators, administrators and donors to track important data from actual classes in real time. Data is collected such as date, time and geolocation of each class as well as iterative feedback from the children which gives educators insight into whether the children are enjoying and understanding the classes.  The data helps educators understand progress, and gives donors deep insight into the program they are supporting and its efficacy, allowing them to release funds based on achievement of transparent mutually agreed key performance indicators (KPIs).

An impact study (endline study) will be conducted at the end of the intervention to identify the effect of the intervention on skill development of teachers and students and to explore the effective methodologies. Comparison between the data of baseline and endline study will clearly depict the differences. This study will also identify the challenges and weaknesses and will recommend suggestions to overcome those.

Every Activity/Lesson Is Mapped To Skills/Playful Learning/Curriculums

Impact Reports

Testimonials

Media Gallery

Summary of Awards and Citations

Rangeet Research and Educational Basis

Curriculum Video

Summary Curriculum & Learning Goals

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

“Children feel included, schools & educators win, workplaces benefit, society strengthens.” -Committee for Children

Primary Beneficiaries:

• Children: in & out of school; rural, urban, marginalised, girls, disabled  

Secondary Beneficiaries:

• Facilitators (educators, support volunteers, caregivers): teaching SEEK helps develop social-emotional skills & ecological agency; 

• Schools/administrators: flexibility allows curation of lessons according to context; app easily track & report progress

• Community members & societies: can take ownership of bettering their communities by sharing the teaching/learning burden with schools, tackling systemic issues

• Donors: can create measurable, demonstrable impact 

• NGOs: are supported by Rangeet's measurable SEEK program to solve problems in communities they support 

(i) Children

Rangeet's SEEK intervention is effective on ALL children. However, initially we aim to benefit low-income and marginalised children and communities in the developing world, where often both caregivers/communities AND school systems tend to overlook teaching and instilling critical social-emotional skills in children, choosing to focus on academics instead. In fact, even in developed countries we are now seeing a lack of empathy, understanding, communication and collaboration at an individual level. Worldwide, the focus is on academics, not the holistic development of children. As Kathy Hirsch-Pasek (Brookings Institution) states SEL is "no longer a nice-to-have." It is as, if not more, important than academics. Rangeet's aim is to fill this void. Stephanie M. Jones (Professor of Early Childhood Development, Harvard Graduate School of Education) concludes that if we don’t solve the social-emotional loss suffered as a result of Covid-19, we will accelerate learning loss by simply focusing on academics.

Rangeet’s app enables our research-based content to reach the hearts and minds of both the facilitator and children at scale. It is not another app adding screen time for children. Rangeet uses technology to reach and support the facilitator to carry out lessons. It goes beyond the social-emotional skills taught at home and school, if any. Through activities, children’s latent strengths are discovered and social-emotional competencies are developed.  For 50 minutes a week every child is afforded the opportunity to shine. Children become better all-round learners who develop empathy towards themselves, others, and all life on earth. 

In a CASEL study released in 2017 covering nearly 97,500 students over an 18-year span, SEL interventions in K-12 students were found to have the following results:

• 11% increase academic achievement

• 23% had improved attitudes towards themselves & others

• 42% reduction in physical aggression

• 10% Suffered less emotional distress/mental health problems

• 22% showed fewer conduct problems

• 10% reduction in substance abuse

• 50% more likely to complete high school

• Twice as likely to get a college degree

• 50% more likely to get a good job by the age of 25

• Improved relationships/connections with others, & therefore, less likely to be bullied or left out (eg. approximately 160,000 students skip school everyday in the US because of bullying)

Research suggests that there is an economic benefit to social-emotional learning (SEL).  A study out of Columbia University shows that for every dollar invested in SEL programming, $11 dollars that would have been spent on costly interventions, remediation, dropout prevention, recovery, etc. is saved (CASEL).  The World Economic Forum and employers alike understand and stress the importance of teaching children social-emotional skills.  The Top 10 skills identified by the World Economic Forum all involve social and emotional competence. 

(ii)  Facilitators

Facilitators and local community members are empowered. We cater to low-income communities with low digital access, where only one basic smartphone is required per class. It can be used in off-line mode. In-app tutorials address low digital literacy.  Rangeet has been implemented in tin sheds in the mangroves of Bangladesh to rice fields in india. Due to the detail of the lesson plans, anyone aged 16 and above who can read can teach SEEK. The user-friendly aspects of the lessons and activities can increase community participation and engagement, allowing community members to take ownership of bettering their communities. Tools in the app inform facilitators of prevailing biases or issues with their students which SEEK can help them tackle.  For example, baseline tests showed gender & skin tone were prevalent issues in Jharkhand, race & religion were prevalent issues in Bangladesh.  Rangeet’s simple “Build It Challenge”, “Crumpled Paper” and “We’re All Made Of The Same Stuff” (shown above) activities helped teachers address bullying, including of children with disabilities.

The minimal infrastructure and training requirement makes the app and SEEK easy to adapt and adopt in any local context making overall programming sustainable.  

Teaching SEEK helps facilitators develop their own social-emotional competencies and find meaning in teaching, leading to greater job satisfaction and less burnout (CASEL and Andreas Schleicher of the OECD). Therefore, less money is spent on training new teachers. 

(iii)  Schools, Administrators, Donors

Rangeet's app enables schools/administrators to teach our full SEEK curriculum or choose from our wealth of activities & resources to curate their own lessons to augment mainstream subjects in the core curriculum in their own context. Rangeet can be implemented in-person or remotely, as was the case during the pandemic.  Schools/communities may choose to help students deal with the fallout of the pandemic with Rangeet’s Pandemic Recovery Activities.  Rangeet’s app enables overburdened teachers/schools to collaborate and share the responsibility of teaching and getting children back on track after the pandemic with parents/caregivers/communities.  

Monitoring tools built into the Rangeet app assist educators, administrators, donors and community heads to track important data from actual sessions in real-time. Personalised programs can also be easily tracked & progress reported.  Data is collected such as date, time and geolocation of each class as well as iterative feedback from the children which gives educators insight into whether the children are enjoying and understanding the classes. This is separate from impact data, which is also provided. The monitoring data helps facilitators understand progress in near real-time, and gives donors deep insight into the program they are supporting and its efficacy, allowing them to release funds based on the achievement of transparent mutually agreed key performance indicators (KPIs). Facilitators' reflections are also taken into account. In this way, administrators can ensure the success of the program. Impact data tracks overall social awareness and improvement in attitudes to important social issues including discrimination, bullying, gender equality, mental health issues and climate change.   

(iv)  Communities, Societies, NGOs

SEL interventions supporting children go a long way in bringing about sustainable change in communities. Community engagement builds & sustains cohesive communities. The full potential of technology can be leveraged when it is combined with robust community engagement programming. Improved outcomes can be achieved when several stakeholders, such as governments, quasi governments, NGOs, school authorities, parents & community members come together to understand and tackle the aspirations, concerns & values of communities. Establishing long standing, effective partnerships between various “ecosystem players” &  “communities” results in a greater sense of community ownership & an improved uptake of services as they are tailored to a community’s unique aspirations. 

Detailed lesson plans, minimal infrastructure & training makes the app & SEEK easy to adapt & adopt in any local context ensuring program sustainability.  Rangeet’s ability to enlist community members can help tackle systemic issues & generate a better impact for society as a whole.  Societies are impacted positively through a more empathetic, content, efficient workforce with more engaged and inclusive learning systems. Awareness of burning social issues increases in facilitators and children. Children discuss such issues with their families, thus, eventually leading to a more empathetic society.

Rangeet enables communities to drive transformational change at a time when SEEK is sorely required. We aim for widespread adoption by being the "intel inside" through scaling/replication of solid systems. 

In addition to various stakeholders benefiting from Rangeet’s implementation at a social level, an economic benefit can also be derived. Civil societies and self help groups in the community can earn by teaching Rangeet to children in their communities. This has happened in several states during the pandemic.  

Environmental Impact On All Beneficiaries

“Education is crucial to promote climate action. It helps people understand and address the impacts of the climate crisis, empowering them with the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes needed to act as agents of change.” - UNESCO

Climate change is already impacting people’s lives & livelihoods, acting as a threat multiplier. The Malala Fund found that the number of girls out of school will rise to 12.5 million by 2025 if nothing is done to alleviate the effects of climate change. Girls' education can help tackle issues that structure girls’ unique climate vulnerabilities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that the planet is set for more extreme heat waves, monsoons and droughts if it continues on its current trajectory. According to the Swiss Re Institute, the global economy could lose 18% of GDP by 2050, if left unchecked.  Poverty rates will rise and low-income countries will lose larger shares of their economic output (Brookings Institution).  

However, it is widely understood that climate action could lead to economic gains. Such action requires education leading to understanding and changes in mindsets.  As we have seen, it is the youth who are leading the way towards climate action.

Rangeet’s mission is to develop global stewardship through our Ecology Umbrella,  providing the foundation children need to tackle the climate crisis.  It deals with the vital role trees, plants and every organism play in the sustainability of all life on earth. Children learn about the value of ecosystems and habitats - the crucial role diversity, unity and community play in nature; forces that impact the balance of nature leading to far reaching consequences. They understand what happens to waste & the 3Rs - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. They talk about ways in which we can individually and collectively conserve, restore and regenerate vital ecosystems. Children discuss how to make responsible and sustainable choices about consumption. An example of agency is children in a Rajasthani village in India deduced their elders were wasting water & instituted a system to regulate water usage while reporting a 30% increase in endline versus baseline data.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Simran Mulchandani - Co-founder, CEO ( B.Sc. Computer Science Brown University) Member of Learning Sciences Exchange (LSX) Advisory Group; Director of Generation Blue (to catalyse an “Earth Positive” or regenerative economy); Served as Director of Global Mangrove Trust and Lykke Corp, a Swiss Fintech company.

“My wife and I raised our kids, Ishan and Samara, on a steady diet of Dr. Seuss. What we wanted most for our children was for them to be creative, crazy, courageous risk takers. But this is often not possible. Our kids come from privilege. They can afford to take risks, fail, pick up, start again as long as they do it responsibly. This realisation hit me in 2013 when I taught a class on English grammar to fourth graders in a government school in Mumbai. I was not quite prepared for how that day would affect me. My class was a cross section of younger and older kids (aged 8 through 14); some differently abled children. And when I inquired why these kids were clubbed so randomly together I was told what I may not have wanted to hear – the girls (mainly) were being abused physically/mentally at home, so would lag behind in learning; some kids were sent to villages to help with farming – hence taken out of school to rejoin at a later date – deeply hurting their self-esteem. The kid who stole my heart was an intellectually challenged girl who had the most enthusiastic sparkle in her eyes, could not express herself at all, but you knew she had so much to say. All these abilities and ages and sexes and emotional states were mixed up in an overburdened, under-resourced classroom – packaged, processed and shoved into a world that didn’t care what they wanted, dreamed about, cared or hoped for. And I recall thinking on my way home – these kids are just defeated at birth. This is where the seed of the idea behind Rangeet began. It became non-negotiable for me to do something that would give every child the opportunity to be courageous: to try, to fail, to find their niche and awaken their inner superhero.”

Karishma Menon - Co-founder, Curriculum & Product  (BA English Literature) 

Documentary film maker in Bombay/Mallorca; Production Assistant. At Rangeet, Karishma works at the confluence of music, human-centric design, education & technology.

“Albert Einstein said, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

I was that fish in school, I felt judged based on my inability to cope academically and in a classroom of friends I was lost and alone. To this day I’m scarred with feelings of inadequacy.

This is what my inequitable classroom left me with and I co-founded Rangeet to fill children with hope, children like 13 year old me.

I often question my purpose on this planet? How can I make an impact? I just may have found it through the work we do at Rangeet. I see the world in pictures, colours, designs. How many other children out there are like me? How can I make them feel like they matter enough and belong in a classroom? How can I make them feel like their intelligence is just as beautiful as their classmates who excel at maths? And finally, how do I enable teachers to rediscover the reason they became teachers in the first place: to know that one child breathed easier or felt like they belonged because of them.”

Renisha Bharvani (Lawyer: Singapore, England & Wales and New York State; Researcher) 

“I grew up in a mini “United Nations”, surrounded by people from almost 100 different countries. Everyone was equal no matter their gender, race, culture or socioeconomic background. Differences were celebrated and instrumental to learning and, as a result, appreciation of diversity and equality in all aspects of life became core to who I am. 

The combination of legal skills and parenthood provided the opportunity for me to research everything from school systems, curriculums and pedagogical methods to sleep and nutrition, mental health and the importance of exercise and play, the value in taking risks, failure and independence, story-telling, art, and more.” 

Renisha’s professional and diverse background equips her to understand the needs of our target population & governments/administrators/funders of projects.

Sandeep Mishra (Business Development)

With two decades of experience working with the public systems in India and abroad, Sandeep is one of the leading experts on how to effectively build systems and coalitions to drive sustainable ‘impact-at-scale’ in education.

Having led some of the most impactful education non-profits in India, Sandeep gained diverse experience of policy and practice. Working with varied and multiple stakeholders, Sandeep built and led coalitions such as National Coalition for Education, Gujarat Education Coalition and was actively engaged with the Global Campaign for Education to advocate the need of quality education for every child.

He held leadership positions in Central Square Foundation, STiR Education, Quest Alliance and the Azim Premji Foundation. He led STiR Education as its founding Country Director India and drove it through to support the local community of over 1,50,000 teachers. Sandeep led several early stage social startups to become full grown organisations, shaping their strategic direction and forging critical business and knowledge partnerships to ensure their sustainability.  

He comes with deep grassroots and education policy experience which is critical to take Rangeet to the most marginalised.  Sandeep sits on a few prestigious education non-profits’ boards and is part of various education practitioners networks. He holds advanced post graduate degrees in education, environmental ethics and social impact leadership from universities in India and abroad.  He has been published in Indian and international journals.

Priyanka Seth Pandit - Co-founder (Educator,Musician) 

25 years teaching across subjects, schools, countries & socio-economic contexts. Was Director of Diversity at New York's Chapin School. 

“I happen to be born into a family that values diversity. People from four religions and three nationalities comprise my family and respect is expected. Then by virtue of my father’s job we lived in a different country every three years of my life, and I moved through seven different schools. The compulsion of having to adjust periodically to different geographical, lingual, cultural environments compelled me to foster compassion, if only even for my own survival! Music, art and drama (all of which I was extensively exposed to from a really young age), reinforced my comprehension of the world as diverse and borderless. My need to share this strong belief, and my experiences from my perspective, are what have given me so much joy and satisfaction as a mother, as a teacher and as a human being.”

RANGEET’S ADVISORY BOARD

Anir Chowdhury

Policy Advisor; Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme, Cabinet Division/ICT Division/UNDP Bangladesh

Anir Chowdhury is the Policy Advisor of the a2i Programme of the ICT Division and the Cabinet Division of the Government of Bangladesh supported by the UNDP. In this capacity, he leads the formation of a whole-of-society innovation ecosystem in Bangladesh through massive technology deployment, extensive capacity development, integrated policy formulation, whole-of-government institutional reform, and an Innovation Fund. 

His work on innovation in public service has developed interesting and replicable models of service delivery decentralisation, public-private partnerships, and transformation of a traditional bureaucracy into a forward-looking, citizen-centric service provider. He is a regular speaker in international conferences on public service innovation and reform, digital financial inclusion, data driven policy making, civil registration and digital identity management, SDGs, youth and community empowerment, educational transformation, public-private partnerships, and South-South Cooperation. He regularly writes in reputed national and international blogs, journals and publications.

He is a member of the Prime Minister’s National Digital Bangladesh Task Force, Education Minister’s National Blended Education Task Force, Cabinet Secretary’s Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) steering committee, WWW Foundation Alliance for Affordable Internet’s Advisory Council, and WEF and UNICEF’s Knowledge and Information Network for Digital Learning and Education’s Steering Committee. He is the Co-Chair of WEF’s Regional Action Group for Digital Transformation and a Deputy Champion of WEF’s EDISON Alliance to improve education, healthcare and financial services for 1 billion people worldwide. He is the Co-Founder and Board Member of South-South Network for Public Service Innovation (SSN4PSI) and Co-Founder of Future of Work Lab in Asia Pacific. He co-founded several software and service companies and non-profit organizations in the US and Bangladesh. Anir graduated magna cum laude in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics from Brown University and did post-graduate work on management, marketing, educational transformation and public sector reform in Harvard, Columbia, Boston, Bradford and Oxford universities.

Sean Bellamy 

Co-designer of Sands School, IDEC and the Phoenix Education Charity

Teacher of Psychology, Geography and History, mindfulness and meditation.

Ashoka Change Leader working with the Ashoka Foundation to develop human scale and democratic practice throughout UK and Europe. Co-designer of Project Eclect a cross European Ashoka School initiative.

Team member of the Wellbeing Project Higher Education Initiative working with ten global Universities to introduce wellbeing to their major stakeholders.

Elder and guide to the Awen Project, Charlotte Church’s Democratic school start up in Wales. Mentoring new democratic education initiatives in the UK, Lithuania, Europe and S Korea. Trains students to run Pop Up restaurants with Eamon Fullalove and works with the ‘Teen Do’ Lectures.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a Professor of Psychology at Temple University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution was declared a “scientific entrepreneur” from the American Association of Psychology.  Writing 16 books and 250+ publications, she served as President of the International Congress for Infant Studies and is on the Governing Board of the Society for Research in Child Development.  Her Einstein Never Used Flashcards won the Book for a Better Life Award in 2003 with her Becoming Brilliant (2016) reaching the NYTimes Best Sellers List in education. Hirsh-Pasek won awards from every psychological and educational society for her basic science and translational work designed to bridge basic science and educational impact. 

A founding member of the Latin American School for Educational and Cognitive Neuroscience, she spearheaded a global network of scientists devoted to educational science. Co-founder of the global Learning Science Exchange Fellowship, she brings together scientists, journalists, policy makers and entertainers, to put learning science in the hands of educators.  Her newest initiative Playful Learning Landscapes re-imagines cities and public squares as places with science infused designs that enhance academic and social opportunities.  Hirsh-Pasek frequently comments for the press (e.g. NPR, NYT) and blogs for the Brookings Institution. 

David Sawyer

David Sawyer has played key roles in a variety of fields: education reform, national service, social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy and environmental stewardship. He specialises in networks, strategy, design, and systems thinking. Prior to co-founding Converge he helped launch the Americorps program, received The Servant Leader Award from the National Youth Leadership Council, and served as the first Executive Director of Social Venture Partners Portland. He was also a strategy consultant with Monitor Institute, and has worked with mission centred organisations and businesses, both small and large, to address complex social and environmental challenges. He lives in Portland, Oregon. 

RANGEET’S HUMAN-CENTRIC DESIGN 

Rangeet's research and implementation is a continuous process. It is consistently tested and evaluated through pilot projects in both formal and informal settings, in schools and communities. 

Initially, Rangeet developed content around areas we felt were important to address- gender, discrimination, diversity, empathy, mindfulness, climate change. After a series of workshops in India, we were invited by BRAC and the Government of Bangladesh to spend a week travelling in urban and rural Bangladesh: from community centres in tin sheds in rice fields to schools with concrete structures. We interviewed teachers, teacher trainers and education specialists; from the Department of Primary Education (DPE) and Brac Education Program (BEP) in different socioeconomic, geographical and cultural contexts to develop and structure our lessons. It is through listening to and co-creating with our target audience that the first version of Rangeet emerged. The need for monitoring and measuring lessons taught and impact on children was highlighted as an important requirement and was incorporated into app functionality.

The first version was taught in the field with teachers of differing abilities. Feedback received included: lesson plans needed more detailed time management, songs when translated into Bengali required more work, teachers in the Bangladesh context could not be depicted without a headscarf. One of the most pivotal changes we had to make in our lessons: a story that depicted a muslim child getting discriminated against didn’t fit the cultural context in Bangladesh - a predominantly Islamic country - where children would likely not understand this narrative. This feedback from teachers was invaluable. All of this became crucial inputs into our playbook for understanding how to scale across geographical and cultural contexts.

The other key feedback from our initial user group was that teachers are already overburdened. The design of the product/lessons had to take this into account so that minimum preparation would be required for class and processes to collect data would be extremely simple.

Without the vital input of our user base at the earliest stage - our product would not connect so closely with educators and administrators.

The need for monitoring and measuring lessons taught and impact was highlighted as an important requirement. Iterative feedback is also encouraged from children and facilitators through our app. For example, several facilitators advised us to add a note to our "good touch, bad touch" discussion to further sensitise facilitators to children's sensibilities, which we did.

To date, pilots have taken place in Bangladesh, India and Peru. In Bangladesh and India, children in government and low fee private schools were taught both in-person and virtually for 50 minutes once a week for between 7 and 20 weeks. 

At the outset, facilitators underwent approximately 12 hours of training. This has now been whittled down to 2-3 hours.  2020 implementations in Jharkhand, India (one of the poorest mining states) led to the creation of several in-app tutorials to address low digital literacy.

At the start, children take a baseline test in order to assess pre-existing attitudes before teaching SEEK. Baseline test results in the state of Jharkhand showed gender and skin tone biases were prevalent amongst students, whilst the same test in Bangladesh revealed that gender and religious issues were paramount. 

Endline tests provided evidence that SEEK interventions were successful in increasing awareness and changing attitudes around important social issues such as discrimination, gender equality and bullying. For example, the comparative analysis between the baseline and endline tests in Bangladesh showed an improvement in attitudes towards girls by 47.3%. Through real-time assessments, teachers were able to understand existing issues in their communities and classrooms and implement a SEEK intervention to effect change. Data further revealed that children demonstrated positive behaviour, became more resilient and more skilled in social-emotional competencies, or 21st century skills. Teachers also confirmed that they were upskilled pedagogically through learning new playful learning methodologies and the understanding of multiple intelligences. 

Realisation that facilitators also held certain biases led us to include facilitators in the baseline and endline testing.  Furthermore, understanding that the detailed, structured lessons were so easy to follow and implement, Rangeet expanded its reach beyond teachers to community members, elders and anyone above 16 years old who can read and is willing to teach SEEK.  Rangeet was thus able to enter rural and peri-urban communities to be taught in-person during the pandemic to alleviate stress, isolation and problems associated with extended school closures.

To date, over 1500 facilitators and 22,500 students have completed SEEK lessons comprising over 500,000 teaching-learning hours.  Therefore, students undergo a consistent learning process rather than individual workshops.

Rangeet’s app enables our research-based content to reach the hearts and minds of both the facilitator and children at scale. It goes beyond the social-emotional skills taught at home and school, if any.  Rangeet draws upon the knowledge of experts across fields, whether it be child psychologists, environmentalists, nutritionists, and more. In the words of educator Emily Style, Rangeet acts as a "mirror and window". Children identify with the language, stories and methods used to teach, whilst also opening the windows of their minds to worlds they know nothing about, making them more inclusive.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Facilitate meaningful social-emotional learning among underserved young people.

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Our solution's stage of development:

How many people does your solution currently serve?

1500 Facilitators; 25,000 Children; 500,000 Teaching-learning hours.

Why are you applying to Solve?

Rangeet was founded on the following guiding principles. It must:

• Solve a pressing social/ecological problem.

• Fulfil a pedagogical & educational need.

• Be able to be used anywhere, any-time by anyone.

• Be proven to work through data, learning science & evidence.

• Be possible to build a team to develop a sustainable business, generating exponential growth.

Capital is certainly required to set the foundation, but to build a sustainable organisation, we need to:

• Be open/willing to seek continuous feedback & adapt accordingly

• Be open to collaborate and share

• Work with the right people, coalitions & networks, building the right team

• Build the right technology infrastructure to support our vision

• Simplify our approach, always knowing what our North Star is

• Build something that outlasts us

Over the past four years, Rangeet has learnt a lot and developed valuable assets which we would like to grow further and share with the Solve Community. We have:

• Developed a research & science-based curriculum/resources, the pedagogical effectiveness of which has been evaluated by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek's team at Brookings Institution, Temple University.

• Developed an app including the curriculum, search functions, M&E tools

• Developed an app which can support, deliver & measure other curriculums/resources

• Had our data analysed by world-renowned researchers (University of Zurich, University of Dhaka) confirming positive effects on attitudes & behaviours of learners & facilitators

• Developed relationships with educators, researchers, scientists, policy-makers,  governments, NGOs, corporates, etc.

Challenges :

Whilst we have assembled an accomplished advisory board, gained great international recognition and forged collaborations with partners (in India and abroad), COVID has presented significant challenges. Across South Asia the most extensive school closures and lockdowns in the world have prevented us from expanding our footprint at the rate we would have hoped to. Home schooling/distance learning focused on core curriculum as educators obsessed about “lost contact hours”. As schools start reopening, an awakening has commenced around the importance of SEEK-like programs as necessary scaffolding for learning, mental well-being & climate agency. We are optimistic that the product, international recognition and technology infrastructure we have built will serve as a strong engine for growth. We hope to work closely with the Solve community to expand Rangeet globally.

Our Goals:

• We now want to expand the program and build an evidence generator to evaluate whether Rangeet is successfully developing better learners and stewardship at scale using an app in different communities, contexts, languages, regions, geographies; providing firm evidence that learning outcomes are improving and that based on this we will be able to influence how learning systems should be crafted; how communities can work in collaboration with schools to support learners and share the teaching / learning burden. Rangeet will generate evidence that will help address acute shortages and problems in the education system by enabling anyone to be a part of the teaching learning process.

• Sound evaluation requires thorough input & evaluation, ideally implemented through randomised controlled trials, testing efficacy, & the time to evaluate the output generated. This requires resources, networks, collaboration, capital and time.

As we have seen from our Jacobs/MIT Solveathon Award, Solve’s guidance is invaluable and will help us achieve organisational sustainability to achieve our goals.

• Mentorship, expertise, guidance and resources in all areas

• Network we become part of and exposure we receive 

• Collaboration and advice/feedback from experts & peers

(i) We hope to benefit from information exchange/guidance around sales growth strategies, pedagogy curriculum, improvement of systematic data collection methodologies, technology, and methods to map Rangeet to core curriculums and test for Rangeet’s efficacy in terms of improving learning outcomes. The Solve community could help us be on top of the global education research and practice landscape which is critical for Rangeet to learn from and improve in its early years of development. The robust and global Solve community of researchers and practitioners will not only help us deepen our impact in India but also could help us scale in other countries of the world, paving the way for impacting the lives of millions of children who are living in learning poverty.

(ii) We hope to offer: Rangeet captures valuable anonymised data in conformity with EU regulations, through its regular learning/classroom operations. We would like to share insights and data where permissible with other network partners to help enrich the whole.

(iii) Above all we seek to collaborate: we hope to form coalitions with the Solver network to test out hypotheses, learning outcomes that will inform how learning systems of the future ought to be built and help create learning equity for all while preparing our youth for the future.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Simran Mulchandani