In line with India’s National Education Policy (NEP) that aims to make India a global knowledge superpower, edtech BrightCHAMPS has set up a Foundation to future-proof 1 million lower-income kids by 2025 by teaching them industry 4.0 skills. 

Two months since its establishment, the BrightCHAMPS Foundation has delivered 2,000 hours of classes across next-gen skills, including coding, robotics, AI, money management, financial literacy, public speaking and presentation skills, impacting close to 10,000 students across three cities in India, the company said. 

Speaking about the Foundation, BrightCHAMPS founder and chief executive officer, Ravi Bhushan, said, “While policies and programmes such as the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act and the National Early Childhood Care and Education Policy have been important steps in the right direction, a lot more remains to be done. Multiple pieces of research by NCERT and the Ministry of Women & Child Development have shown that upwards of 50 million kids in India are significantly behind grade-appropriate learning levels, and close to 50 per cent of teenagers in our country don’t complete formal secondary education.” 

He firmly believed that quality next-gen skills learning could help bridge the gap and help historically disadvantaged kids move up financially and socially as adults who can make the country proud. “Several government agencies and ministries have shown that learning is a powerful levelling and enabling force and that every kid must be provided with the opportunities and means to achieve their dreams,” Bhushan added. 

According to a 2014 report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), 32 million Indian children (between 6-13 years) have never attended school. According to NCERT’s 2017 National Achievement Survey, nearly half of the primary school-going children in India—about 50 million—are not achieving grade-appropriate learning levels. Another report by the Ministry of Women & Child Development has revealed that around 50 per cent of adolescents do not complete secondary education. Moreover, approximately 20 million children do not attend pre-school. 

BrightCHAMPS has tied up with Shankar Lalwani, a Member of Parliament from Indore, to make marginalised kids in Indore proficient in tech, money, and communications skills. Other collaborations include DAV School in Dwarka, New Delhi, Smile Foundation, IIM Ahmedabad, Dubai Cares, Choice Foundation, Navjyoti Foundation, and Devi Foundation. 

The edtech’s director of curriculum and learning experiences, Kartik Sharma, who leads this initiative, said, “We’ve learned, through exhaustive research, that when kids are introduced to hands-on and practical learning experiences, they develop a solution-oriented outlook to life. This makes them work-ready as they grow into adulthood and enables them to identify their talents and interests correctly. We believe that a multi-disciplinary and digital-first approach to learning that can be applied to real-world scenarios instead of being limited to theoretical knowledge systems will make India’s youth more employable and active participants of the global economy.” 

Going forward, the Foundation will set up avenues to provide its top-performing students with scholarships and other support to access more opportunities. BrightCHAMPS is also looking forward to making the Foundation financially independent by 2024. While executing the current partnerships, it is also actively looking to onboard new partners who will help it reach more deserving kids. 

Founded in 2020 by IIT-Varanasi graduate Bhushan, BrightCHAMPS is currently operational in over 30 countries, including India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the US, UAE and many others in SEA and the MENA region. In November 2021, it raised $51 million in a financing round led by Premji Investment with participation from edtech focused investment company GSV Capital, Singapore-based Beenext and Binny Bansal-backed 021 Capital. It was valued at $500 million, bringing its total funding to $63 million back then.