About HCL

Founded in 1976 as one of India’s original IT garage start-ups, HCL is a pioneer of modern computing with many firsts to its credit, including the introduction of the 8-bit microprocessor-based computer in 1978 well before its global peers. Today, the HCL enterprise has a presence across varied sectors that include technology, healthcare and talent management solutions and comprises three companies – HCL Infosystems, HCLTech and HCL Healthcare. The enterprise generates annual revenues of over US$13.7 billion with 219,000 employees operating across 59 countries. For further information, visit www.hcl.com

About Shiv Nadar Foundation

Established in 1994, by Shiv Nadar, Founder, HCL – a US$13.7 billion leading global technology enterprise, the Foundation is committed to the creation of a more equitable, merit-based society by empowering individuals through transformational education, and to bridge the socio-economic divide. Over the last 30 years the Foundation has directly touched the lives of over 39,000 alumni and students through its marquee institutions in literacy, K12 and higher education. Today, the Foundation has a community of over 100,000 constituents, which includes not only globally dispersed alumni and students but also faculty members, corporate executives, and extended families.

The Foundation has invested over US$1.5 billion in its seven landmark institutions and initiatives across education and art. Currently, over 16,000 students and over 2,700 faculty and staff are part of the Foundation along with more than 26,000 strong globally dispersed alumni community.

The Foundation’s students have gone to study at some of the best institutions globally including the Ivy League in the US and top universities in other countries including Australia, Singapore, China and UK. Students are also working in major corporations, including Goldman Sachs, Honda, HP, Schindler, and several others both in India and across other geographies. Faculty across the Foundation institutions are drawn from the best Indian and international universities, with a strong focus on research and innovation.

The Shiv Nadar Foundation pursues the philosophy of ‘Creative Philanthropy’. It is a powerful model which envisages creation of institutions that are built to last and continue to impact future generations. It is an approach that allows sustained institutionalized philanthropy for long-term, high-impact, socio-economic transformation.

SHIKSHA Initiative was started in 2012 with a mission to create literate and empowered nation. The program started in two phases – Centre of Excellence (CoE) Model and Project Expansion Model.

CoE was the pilot phase which was aimed at developing and testing the programs as well as addressing the gaps. As the initial phase, it helped in monitoring the effectiveness of processes, benchmarking performance for optimum implementation and providing customized frameworks for enhancing output. In summary, Center of Excellence brings together varied Most Unexceptional practices in program development, deployment and measurement to embed the skills and knowledge required to make SHIKSHA a successful model.

CoE started in four primary government schools with four young dynamic academic experts who were entrusted with the responsibility to implement the SHIKSHA Initiative in one school each. These individuals carried the equipment including laptop, batteries, inverters and projectors on a daily basis to the schools and conducted classes using interactive digital content.

Incorporating the learnings from the pilot phase, in 2013, the number of schools were increased from four to 20 in two districts of Uttar Pradesh i.e. Gautam Buddha Nagar and Bulandshahar. Also, the digital content based on UP board curriculum for grade 1 and 2 was developed, tested and implemented in this stage. In 2014, the project expanded to 40 schools reaching out to 5000 students. During this period, testing of technology was initiated, Field Officers (teachers in open lab) were trained, and the curriculum was made ready. Focusing on its mission, SHIKSHA initiative was expanded to 300 schools in 2015 adding three more districts in UP to its implementation areas i.e. Mirzapur, Hardoi and Hathras. In 2016, SHIKSHA Initiative shifted its approach. This included consolidation of efforts across all locations and shifting the project expansion efforts to a new location – Kasmanda block in Sitapur district.

Since the advent, SHIKSHA Initiative was invited by the District Magistrates of Siddharth Nagar, Balrampur, Gonda, and several other districts to help implement the model. With this, SHIKSHA had converted to reality its mission of creating a scalable, replicable model for improving primary school education.