NavGurukul turns 7!

Like my niece, who also turns 7 next month, NG (NavGurukul) now has its own character, inner life and an evolutionary trajectory. It is a moment of deep joy and gratitude for all of us to be able to nurture and be nurtured in return by the work and people here at NavGurukul.

Here are some of the updates from last year. With the same vulnerability and brevity with which we shared The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, here’s our Roses, Buds and Thorns. It’s a reminder to us that roses will always come with thorns and buds and how all of this always goes together.

Roses:

1. We have grown (up!)
   a. We have enabled 650+ students to get jobs in tech careers
   b. We now have 9 campuses across India with a total student capacity of 1200+ with most being in partnerships with Governments.
   c. We are now 199 full time individuals and 80+ part timers/ dedicated volunteers
2. ~60% of our team is our alumni, and the balance is senior talent with diverse experiences in tech, pedagogy, product development, community engagement, etc. Some of the alumni are now taking on bigger roles in the team and folks with 25+ years of experience in tech in orgs like Microsoft have also joined NavGurukul in full time capacity.
3. We have started courses in Business, Education, Finance and Design to diversify our course offerings and have integrated using generative AI in our learning experience.
4. The development of “Ghar,” our open-source data management system is underway, promising improved efficiency and informed decision-making.
5. We are in the final stages of closing a partnership to offer a BCA program beginning next year. It allows us to experiment with longer offerings to enable even deeper transformation and provide degrees.
6. We are looking for a land for constructing our own zero energy waste, green campus where our community can deepen their understanding of the environment and self.
7. We got FCRA!

Thorns:

1. Placements have been slow. Market conditions due to wars, recession, AI; change in our curriculum to respond to AI, learning to operate at scale have all played a role.
   We have about 150 students who are waiting to be placed in a job and more will be ready next quarter. If you can help us reach out to people recruiting freshers, please do connect. You can use the template here to make a quick introduction.
2. We have seats open in Bangalore, Udaipur, Pune and our Chhattisgarh campuses and are looking for deserving students to join our campuses.
3. We need more folks who can facilitate Web Development (JavaScript) and communication skills learning. If you know someone who would like to work part time, full time or volunteer dedicatedly, please do reach out.

Buds (questions that are guiding some of our current work):

1. How do we ensure campuses remain student-led, spaces of agency even as we scale?
2. How do we make privilege checks during our admissions process more robust without ever closing doors on those who truly deserve it?