MIT Solve

Step 2

Our Solution

The/Nudge

Our solution's stage of development:

Pre-Seed

Our solution:

The/Nudge Gurukul is fully-residential program in Life Management. It’s comprehensive 360-degree approach is aimed at making the underprivileged youth job and life-ready, by focusing on mindset change, technical skills & employability. This ensures their ability to secure good jobs and adapt as per its needs to progress in their career.

Our pitch:

Of the 1 million people joining the workforce every month in India, 23% come from impoverished background and 50% are school dropouts. Since most of them lack skills to be employable, they are deprived of livelihood avenues never getting a chance to escape to poverty trap. Our solution, The/Nudge Gurukul model is a rigorous 3-month fully-residential program that focusses on mindset change, technical skills & employability through its 360-degree approach making its students ready to face the changing needs of workforce of 21st century.

Only the candidates from the poorest communities are mobilized and admitted via multiple channels (direct/partners/referrals) after filtering for need, motivation, cognition, education & livelihood fit. They are then trained in top-quality courses on life (personal development, career, health, financial management, entrepreneurship), learning (English, Math, Digital proficiency) and economic (livelihood skills) foundation. The andragogy used at Gurukuls is similar to MakerSpace (learning by making/doing/experiencing) models. The entire curriculum design is modular in nature, which allows us to plug-and-play the required modules based on need and baseline of a cohort, and requirement for a livelihood. An open-campus placements model allows students choice of offer and employer-fit. Through placement partnerships, students are connected to jobs in the city where a higher density and availability of jobs results in better placement rates. We also provide support to alumni and their families in the areas of career, health and finance, aided by a technology-enabled service delivery platform. This ensures that we pull marginalized community out of poverty in a sustainably.

If scaled, we envision to become the largest feeder engine for high quality skilled workforce by providing world-class skill training to the needy and be a role model for skill training for not only the skilling ecosystem and training providers in India, but also globally.

The problem:

In India, an estimated 1 million people join the workforce every month and will continue to do so for the next 15 years. About 25% of these come from impoverished backgrounds (exposure to violence/drugs, lack of water/healthcare/sanitation, etc) and 50% are school dropouts. Hence, a majority lack not only the basic education and technical skills, but also the life skills and confidence to be employable. Most current skilling institutes are inadequate as they only focus on imparting hard skills, have low placement emphasis and lack post-placement support, leading to youth falling back into poverty trap.

Why our solution will solve the problem:

Our hypothesis is that to pull economically downtrodden section of the society sustainably out of poverty we need to enable them to leverage the right opportunities and make the right decisions in their lives. This can be achieved through an intervention model where right beneficiaries are provided with right skills and job opportunities, along with post-placement support. The skills help them move and grow in the job or sector of their choice. Post-placement support helps them conserve their health and wealth. Hence, over time they are able to take charge of their lives both professionally and personally.

Who recommended you to Solve - or - how did you find Solve?

A friend

Step 3

Step 4

The technologies we employ:

Consumer-facing software (mobile applications, cloud services)

Why our solution is unique:

Unlike any other skill/training provider, The/Nudge provides 100% placement to students who opt-in and post-placement support to insulate them from life-shocks that might pull them back into cycle of poverty. We provide support in the areas of career, health and finance, aided by a technology-enabled service delivery platform via a dedicated team and the alumni body.

We have also developed a framework to track our alumni for tracking and measuring our impact. We use CRM platform integrated with cloud-based telephony solutions to store and monitor alumni data & to automate our reach-outs, campaigns, counselling, job announcements, IVRS.

Why our solution is human-centered:

To increase our reach we have piloted alumni referral channel which is not only cost effective but is also reliable and builds trusts in communities in which we operate. Our post-placement support system across areas of career, health and finance involves trained counsellors reaching out to alumni in need through online technology based systems like CRM, Cloud-based telephony systems, IVRS, SMS blasts etc. Hence, our program is designed to use both technology and human touch to build trust and solve for on-ground problems in a holistic and realistic manner.

How people will access our solution:

Our program is free of cost for all beneficiaries since they are targeted at underprivileged youth who cannot afford paid training or skill development programs. So far we have piloted our model though Corporate Social Responsibility funds, Foundation and HNI grants. Over next 3-5 years we intend to partner with Government and larger foundations for faster scale-up and keep our program more accessible. We have also launched a digital-first retail fund raising model to ensure sustainability of our program at scale.

Technology-Readiness Level:

4-5 (Prototyping)

Our website

https://www.thenudge.org/

Step 5

Step 6