Session 37 summary
Project DEFY
The whole premise of this project is a very simple challenge that is the commodification of children. From birth the child is taught like a piggy bank for the future economic security. Abhijit was chipped off by the education system to a same looking cube like everyone else. The education system takes away our capacity of being curious. How can the existing education system be reimagined?
During his graduation Abhijit realised that all these aspirations were restrictions which diverted the focus from engineering and the students stop caring about it. Universities implant the fear of getting a job and the horrible situation of not getting one in the students.
Six months later he decided to leave without any specific plans and even leave the city because it would be a constant reminder of his failure. He started staying in a village close to Bangalore. There was an NGO present there to teach engineering to the kids of the village and he joined them. Here he got a place to think about himself and the future. There was lack of internet cafés so kids were not influenced by the presence of computers. There was an interesting group of children who used to hang out in a tea stall which Abhijit also visited. After many days observing Abhijit, the children asked for his phone after which they formed a group and played Temple Run. This continued for some days with great results so Abhijit thought that if these kids can do it in a PC too and so he invited them to play in a bigger screen. No instruction was given to them so after few minutes they ran to the laptops. Abhijit decided not to look but he could hear them in the background getting busy. The children would get curious as to what he was doing so from time to time they would come and peek on his screen and then run back to their groups. After 3 hours there was complete silence. He turned around and found that the children were still there with group of 2-3 children occupying one laptop. A different game being played in each laptop interestingly, somehow they were doing it on the internet. Gradually, he started showing things to them like a set of tools he had with him and asked them what they would like to do and build things. But he had no materials and money, he also didn’t want to take the children’s money. So the group went to different homes asking for their trash and salvage things that they can use to build things. The space started getting popular but it had no name. But soon this became a problem as now there were too many people but too less tools. The kids came up with a solution to this which was to come in groups. It started to feel like a learning space without anyone teaching them. There were no pre-requisites, really a good learning space. Abhijit wanted to know if it would work without him so he informed the people that he would be leaving but still pay the rent of the space. He went to Meghalaya and returned to Bangalore after sometime. He wanted to check how the space was doing, he was a bit pessimistic. But the people and things present there increased. They started calling these places Nook later. It became a place where one does not need to pretend to be someone they are not.
Soon Abhijit started calling this initiative Project DEFY and many people questioned him on why a negative name? But he doesn’t thinks so, as it is a place where people design education for themselves. He didn’t want each nooks to do the same thing instead he wanted to create a space where people wanted to do something. Hence, every Nook is different but still carry same values. The people are mixed together and not segregated into different classes like educational institutions.
About the Speaker
Abhijit Sinha
Founder & CEO
Project DEFY
Bengaluru
Abhijit Sinha did his graduation in Computer Science Engineering from Vellore Institute of Technology in 2013. He is the Founder and CEO of Project DEFY which was founded on September 2015. He is Passionate about Education and Tech and high social impact. The same is reflected in Project DEFY which is enabling learners all around the world to take charge of their own learning and design their own lives, by creating Self-learning Spaces called Nooks within marginalized communities. Nooks are physical spaces, where people of all ages gather, question their life and surroundings and design learning journeys that matter to them.
