How a gurukul for coders is changing lives

Shivam Monga’s Dilliwala accent gives way to an American twang as he explains in soft, polite tones how the listener has won a lottery from the US government. It was a bait the 21-year-old would belt out with ease 400 times a night. Some unsuspecting Americans even fell for it. But then, news of police raids on the Gurugram call centre started doing the rounds. Fearing a shutdown, Shivam took his month’s salary and quit. Nine months on, he’s headed to become a software engineer.

From playing hide-and-seek with a life of hopelessness and possibly crime, Shivam has come a long way. Thanks to NavGurukul, the past year has been lifechanging for him and some other youngsters. A brainchild of two techies, the non-profit initiative teaches coding to academically bright but underprivileged students. The course has been rewritten in Hindi and designed to aid self-learning by the two founders, Abhishek Gupta and Rishabh Verma, who were joined by their disillusionment with India’s higher education system.

Both IIT-Delhi alumnus Abhishek and Class X dropout Rishabh felt that college education in India did not equip students with the tools to prepare for the future. “For any middle-class student, higher education is a transformative experience. But there are so many barriers for those from poor socio-economic backgrounds, whether it is their scores or the high fees. Even if they do succeed in getting a college degree, it is worthless for getting a job,’’ Abhishek says.

Rishabh, who feels his school education had nothing to offer, rattles off numbers: “Only 7% of the engineers produced are employable and only 5% of software engineers that pass out annually actually know how to code.”

In such an environment, the duo last year decided to create a minigurukul in a three-bedroom flat in Sarita Vihar, where selected students could live and study. Students in the age group of 18-22 years went through a selection process that included three tests to judge if they could grasp software programming. After eight to nine months of training, they were placed for internship in companies as software programmers. Today, all six have job offers from IT start-ups such as Bengaluru based Pando.in, Delhi- based TestRocket and ScaleDesk based in Noida.

Classes start at 8:30am after a quick breakfast and clean- up. Manoj Kumar, among the oldest of the group, is in charge of ensuring everyone sticks to their assigned work, like cooking, cleaning and studying. Class continues till 1:30 in the afternoon before the group breaks for lunch and then continues till late evening. Often the students are up till 3-4am practising and writing programs.

The rigour is not everyone’s cup of tea. Manoj, 27, recalls how he had walked out of the course initially. He used to get 40-45% and passed school exams by cheating. At NavGurukul, Manoj was faced with the challenge of studying for the first time. “I was much slower than others and this just got to me. I thought I could not do it,’’ he says. He went back to his home in a one- room flat in R K Puram where his parents, older brother and his wife lived. ‘’The reality hit me then. There was no future at home. If I wanted to earn, own a house, marry of my own choice, I had to make this work for myself,’’ he says. He threw himself back in the course with renewed vigour. Today, Manoj acts as a mentor to new students.

Shivam, whose father drives an autorickshaw in Rohini, recently finished an internship as a software programmer. He could not have imagined this in his wildest dreams. ‘’I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I could be. For the first time, I feel that I can work in an office,’’ he says.

The youngsters’ lack of selfbelief was a big challenge for Abhishek and Rishabh. ‘’Software engineering is easy. Figuring out how to build their confidence was the tough part,’’ Rishabh says. The students have sessions with a counsellor, learn meditation and yoga, and have been introduced to ideas of gender empowerment and LGBT rights through guest lecturers. The students have been taught about office culture, whether it is reaching work on time or meeting project deadlines.

Like Shivam, 24-year-old Dhanno worked in call centres and held odd jobs till NavGurukul came his way. “I kept getting laid off. It felt so bad. Jaise koi izzat hi nahi hain (Like no one respects me). It was very disheartening,’’ he says. But the stint at NavGurukul has given him confidence to face the world.

NavGurukul is based on the concept of paying back to society. The two techies have spent about Rs 70,000 on each student over a year and this amount will be paid back once the student starts earning to ensure the platform stays sustainable.

Having tasted success with the first batch of six students, Abhishek and Rishabh now plan to expand the number of students they take and include girls as well.