Meet Avani Goenka, 17, Kolkata, a student of Modern High School for Girls who set up her NGO, Project 21 in order to uplift the less privileged out of poverty and empower them by teaching computer science and technology. The idea struck her in the pandemic, during which she recognized and sought to bridge the technological gaps, especially those present in the education system of the Indian society.

For the past year starting in 2020, Avani has been teaching these underprivileged children by conducting these workshops in a weekly format. These workshops comprise online classes, events, and seminars for the children. Avani has taught and had specially curated these workshops for students in Classes 3 to 12, according to their own skill levels, interest, inclination, and prerequisite knowledge. Even children in Classes 3-5 greatly enjoyed and benefited from these workshops.

It was a pleasure to see the smile on their faces as they designed their own brochures and web pages began operating software applications and created various movies and games online. The lessons include quizzes, discussions, building their own web pages, and trivia. By means of online workshops and classes, Avani has educated hundreds of underprivileged children in India and across the world during the previous year and continues to expand her initiative every day.

These children, many of whom were never introduced to these fields, found much interest and applications in computer science. For past workshops, she collaborated with children from other organizations across different countries and has been able to reach hundreds of children across the globe by means of this joint endeavor. Recently, Project 21 collaborated with USA-based Sciencious Organisation, Astudia Organisation, and Stem Encounters wherein they taught Digital Literacy to students in Classes 6-12. They conducted these workshops in a collaborative manner and the ones to have received the maximum overwhelming responses were the Digital Literacy and Artificial Intelligence workshops. During the course of these workshops, the children were well versed in computing and digital literacy skills.

Project 21 today continues to conduct similar workshops with their team and they are currently looking to introduce new coding languages, data science, and software operations into their curriculum for newer and upcoming workshops. The children are always overjoyed and elated to learn about computers, develop websites and games and apply the principles of artificial intelligence in their daily lives. Moreover, Project 21 ensured they were taught the highly demanded technical skills which have made them better employable individuals.

Project 21 has been ever grateful to its team of 20+ volunteers, without whom they would not have been able to reach the hundreds of underprivileged children across the 6 countries that they have and provide them with online education. This is only the beginning of this initiative and Avani is on her way towards shaping a tech-inclusive Indian society and redefining technology education for underprivileged children.

For more information about NGO Project 21, and for interested individuals to volunteer at their organization, kindly check out their website: https://project21ngo.wixsite.com/avanigoenka. One can also email them at project21byavani@gmail.com.