MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Our Solution

Navgurukul

One-line solution summary:

Empowering girls from underserved communities to become programmers & get access to tech jobs, break away from gender & economic barriers

Pitch your solution.

Access to high-quality higher education that can open doors to aspirational jobs remains a faraway dream, especially for girls from rural India, scheduled castes & tribes, and other minorities.

Navgurukul’s flagship, one-year residential program is designed to solve this problem by addressing the economic, social, and pedagogical challenges faced by these learners.

Key Ingredients:

A peer learning structure that allows students to enroll on a rolling basis and learn at their own pace.
A digital learning platform that is designed specifically for the needs of our audience. It facilitates hands-on learning in a self-paced manner.
Zero cost model for learners, to be paid forward only once they have jobs and financial security.

Navgurukul helps girls break away from gender and financial barriers. These girls each become a beacon of hope in their communities and support many others to break out of their many shackles.

Film your elevator pitch.

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

Increase and leverage the participation of underserved communities in India and Indonesia — especially women, low-income, and remote groups — in the creation, development, and deployment of new technologies, jobs, and industries

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Gurugram, Haryana, India

Is your solution working in India and/or Indonesia?

My solution is being deployed or has plans to deploy in India

What specific problem are you solving in India and/or Indonesia?

The main problem that we are looking to solve is that women, especially those from marginalized communities have no pathways to high-paying tech jobs that are not under the threat of automation but rather will thrive in 4IR. A few important facts regarding the problem:

Access to engineering education has increased manifold in India since 2005. However, even with the increased numbers, women’s participation in engineering remains abysmal. In 2015-16 out of all students enrolled in engineering, only 26.1% were female.
On top of that, only 11% of these students were from scheduled castes and only 5% from scheduled tribes.

A variety of social and economic factors are at play in keeping the numbers for both of the above metrics low.

3. If somehow a woman from a scheduled tribe makes it to an engineering college, the chances of her learning industry-relevant skills and getting a tech job are still slim. In 2019, 93 - 80% of engineering graduates from India were found to be unemployable. This problem exists because of a lack of autonomy of institutions, nonupdated curriculums, lack of trained, industry-experienced faculty, etc.

14% of India’s total population of 1.4 billion is women between the ages of 16 - 30.

Our solution addresses all of these factors by creating a program that:

Allows high school dropouts, is zero cost, instills industry-relevant high demand skills, and places these girls in aspirational high growth jobs.

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

Anu comes from a small town in UP. Her father passed away when she was 5 and her mother was all of 22. They have sustained a small farm income since. She dropped out of school when she was 15 as it was expensive, she was needed on the farm and no further pathways made sense anyway. Anu comes from a Mahadalit community, employment options in her village are limited for her. Even within her community, her family is marginalized as her mother is considered unlucky and the reason for her father’s death.

Bano comes from a slum community in the outskirts of Pune. Her father is an alcoholic and mom has largely taken care of Bano and her sister through the years despite domestic abuse. She has finished 12th but doesn’t have the money to pursue college further.

Kavita grew up in an organization that works for the welfare of kids who are born with HIV. Savita is queer and is unable to accept patriarchy in her family. Kusum was at the receiving end of sexual abuse by her cousin at her home when she was 16.

Navgurukul is created to support these girls to break out of gender and economic shackles. We work closely with them through our residential programs to understand their needs and constantly shape our curriculum, team, and processes to better serve them. We hire our alumni extensively to ensure the team truly understands the challenges faced by our learners and drives deep transformation.

How does the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge?

As we write this application, we are fully convinced that the who and what of our work fully aligns with that of this challenge.

Who: It is one of Navgurukul's core principles to serve the most underserved. Our target population is those who get the shortest end of the bargain in more ways than one - girls from rural India, from scheduled castes and tribes or other religious minorities, from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, those who are victims of trafficking, kids of sex workers, or are from conflict-ridden zones, etc.

When Navgurukul started, it served both boys and girls from rural and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. However, we made a conscious shift to only focus on girls and gender empowerment as a core part of our culture and goals. Today there are 680 girls on 4 Navgurukul campuses as compared to only 28 in March 2020.

What: Another core principle is to focus on deep transformation and create access to the most aspirational jobs. Thus, while others focus on vocational training and equipping such girls with skills such as tailoring etc that could be affected by automation anyway, we equip girls to get jobs in tech companies and set them up to learn on their own throughout their careers to keep upskilling themselves and gain access to the increasingly better opportunities in the digital economy.

Also doing inner work to break away from gender shackles is a big part of our mindset and soft skills curriculum.

In which Indian States and/or Union Territories is your solution operating?

Karnataka
Maharashtra
Tripura
Uttarakhand (Uttaranchal)
Delhi

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Scale

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Nidhi Anarkat is the lead for this program. Nidhi has 10+ years of experience in edtech, 8, in future of work. She is a Harvard alumna and comes with entrepreneurial experience as well as experience working in various edtech initiatives both in India and in the US.