Two IITians. One Big Dream. Funded.

“Potential is equally distributed, but opportunities are not.”

Shakruddin was gifted with a voice that many professional musicians envy. He was well on his way to seeing his dream of becoming a singer come true.

However, things didn’t turn out the way he hoped they would. While he was still in school, his mother passed away, leaving him and his younger siblings orphaned. With nobody to help take care of his family, Shakruddin had no choice but to give up his dream any many other elements of his life.

He quit school and starting working at a beauty parlour, which paid just enough to fund the family’s food and board. The young man wanted a better lot for his family. He didn’t know how he could change things, and this frustrated him.

This is where NavGurukul stepped in.

They took Shakruddin under their wing and decided to provide him with the necessary education to survive and prosper in the modern Indian economic picture. NavGurukul instructors taught him coding languages, starting from basic languages such as C and then progressing to more complex languages later.

This proved to be a life-changing opportunity for Shakruddin, and he is not the only one.

The man behind it all…

NavGurukul, started by Abhishek Gupta, an IIT alumnus and Rishabh Verma, a self-taught programmer, has a mission to empower people from underprivileged backgrounds by helping them develop the skills to get white collar jobs. This comes in sync with the IT industry boom that continues to drive the services led Indian economy. NavGurukul incorporates students into that system and brings about upward social mobility. The enterprise operates by providing free education to their students, who then pay a nominal fee for their course in installments once they land a job that pays them at least Rs. 15,000 per month.

A fresher in an IT company usually starts off with a base salary of INR 25,000. This is in comparison with the INR 6,000 or so they might have been making usually through backbreaking manual labour, with nearly no prospect for career advancement.

To make their teaching more effective, NavGurukul sought to start two additional learning centres along with developing an e-learning app called Saral, along the lines of Coursera and Udacity.

However, setting up and running skills training centers for young people isn’t cheap. Usually, a lot of money has to be invested before a student can even start; laptops and books are essential for learning, and since Nav Gurukul students are from low-income families, these have to be bought for them. Space and overheads run into large sums. To keep alive their mission of educating India’s youth, Abhishek and Rishav started a crowdfunding campaign on Impact Guru.

NavGurukul successfully raised over INR 6,00,000 on Impact Guru’s platform with a total of 51 unique donors contributing to the cause! Moreover, the fundraiser has been shared over 281 times just from the fundraiser page itself!

Through its effort, NavGurukul brought (and continues to bring) quality education to those who are unable to attend college to change their destinies. Moreover, students are encouraged to sponsor those who come after them, in a circle of kindness that will continue to flow. Now, the social enterprise is already working on opening another institute, one for women!

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