Unchai Foundation
We are all aware of the fact that the education provided in villages, refuge areas, and other rural settings isn't very good. Online education has made matters worse. A report states that only 8% of households with children between 5 and 24 years of age have both a computer and an internet connection, in terms of education underprivileged have suffered the most.
We plan to develop an app where NGOs, village and refuge area community members can come and register themselves. High school students willing to teach at these places can also come and register themselves.
This way underprivileged students can get the education that they deserve, and the high school students can build their resume, improve public speaking skills and learn something new because - "While we teach, we learn"-Seneca
Children residing in Villages/Refugee Areas/Rural Areas aren't able to get a quality education, and the pandemic has just made the matters worse. A survey done in India, in 2018, found that just 50% of the rural children in Class 5 could read a Class 2 level text, and only 28% could do division problems. In Africa, an estimated 101 million children are not able to attend school, of which half of them are girls.
Some problems faced by schools in villages/ refugee are-
Overly crowded classrooms
Lack of funds
Political interference
Low education standards of teachers/Lack of dedication from teachers.
Poor infrastructure.
Lack of concern of state government in providing quality education.
Unchai Foundation hopes to solve these problems with the help of an app that can connect underprivileged students with high-school students willing to teach.
We are planning to develop an app, where Villages, NGOs and refugee area communities can come and register themselves. Volunteers willing to teach at these places can also come and register themselves. With the help of the app, we shall then assign each volunteer a subject, topic, and place where they would have to tutor students. The volunteers can either opt for teaching online or offline.
If the volunteer opts for teaching online, a meeting will be scheduled with that respective NGO/Village/Refugee Area community, that link will then be mailed to the student as well as the respective centre (The equipment required by the centre for the joining the online meeting will be provided by us)
The high school students will be getting points for the number of hours they teach, which they can use to join meetings that we'll be organizing in the future.
We are a student-led Non-Profit Organization aiming to create a platform for children and learners to connect and engage with schools and NGOs.
We plan to introduce various courses and initiatives to complement our mission and create a society worth learning and living in.
We hope that our efforts, endowed with the passion to help and serve our community, will help every student get what they ideally should: a platform to learn and explore, and a place to create, experiment, develop and educate themselves.
Families with inadequate educational resources will be our target beneficiaries. Rural village areas and refuge areas are also some places where we plan to implement our goals.
- Enable access to quality learning experiences in low-connectivity settings—including imaginative play, collaborative projects, and hands-on experiments.
Our aim and mission reconcile with the selected dimension of the challenge. Our target beneficiaries, as formerly mentioned, are people in low-connectivity and rural settings. The work our NGO is doing clearly coincides with the notions of the challenge and our App shall efficiently help narrow the digital divide and facilitate high-quality education in such areas.
- Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea.
We came up with this idea a couple of months ago and we are still figuring out how to move forward and what all features will be necessary in the app.
- A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successful
This solution will not only provide the underprivileged with better education but will also help them to get in touch with people from different backgrounds. This will help them explore newer fields and also understand different cultures.
The high school students who volunteer through us will not only get social work hours, but they'll also get a chance to improve their public speaking skills. They'll also be learning new things while they are teaching and not to mention they'll also get a chance of getting in touch with the underprivileged students, which will help them understand the different kinds of problems they face.
- Crowd Sourced Service / Social Networks
- Software and Mobile Applications
- Women & Girls
- Children & Adolescents
- Rural
- Peri-Urban
- Poor
- Low-Income
- Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
- Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
- 4. Quality Education
- 10. Reduced Inequality
- India
- Bangladesh
- India
We started our NPO only 2 months ago, and we are not serving anyone right now, but at present, we are talking to 4-5 NGOs in India.
By the end of this year, we hope to serve around 1000 students, and approximately 50000 students by the end of 2026.
Our social media reach, the number of volunteers we get on a monthly basis, the number of children and learners we've been able to help, the number of laptops and gadgets we've provided are some of the indicators to measure our progress.
- Nonprofit
Total part-time- staff - 18
Blogging team - 6
Graphics Designing Team - 4
Volunteers - 10
Developers - 1
(Some of the people who work in other departments are tutors as well)
All of us are high school students with no professional experience but a desire to provide the best quality education to the underprivileged.
The developer has been into coding for more than 3 years. He has taken part in various hackathons and worked on several projects.
The members of our publishing department have some serious experience to back them up. They write for newspapers, and they own blogs which they update regularly. Reading their write-ups is an enormously fun task.
We have highly experienced graphics designers, you can check out our Instagram page to see some of their work. - https://www.instagram.com/unch...
Our volunteering team currently has members from a variety of different countries like Pakistan and Benin. Our organization does not tolerate and has a strict policy against discrimination on the grounds of sex, gender, religion, sexual orientation, caste, race and ethnicity. Our Instagram page focuses on spreading awareness on these topics and it also highlights why education on the aforementioned topics is important. We further plan to make our environment more inclusive by incorporating people from more diverse backgrounds. This would also give us useful insights and suggestions on how we can improve on certain aspects of the organization
- Organizations (B2B)
We are applying to solve to get in touch with mentors, who can guide us through the whole journey. We also hope to get in touch with organizations/companies who can help us provide resources to underprivileged communities.
- Business model (e.g. product-market fit, strategy & development)
- Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
- Legal or Regulatory Matters
- Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)
- Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)
The whole organization is run by school going students, and we don't have the knowledge of running a non-profit organization. So we think that guidance in these areas will help us grow faster.
We would love to partner with organizations like cry and smile foundation who can help us spread awareness and provide required resources(laptops, mobile phones, internet connectivity etc) to the underprivileged communities, We also look forward to partner with MIT faculties who can guide us in marketing, branding and making a concrete business plan.
- Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Our solution will help underprivileged students from different communities get access to education easily. It will also help them get in touch with people from different backgrounds, this will them to explore newer field and cultures
- No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution
- Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Our solution will help underprivileged students from different communities get access to education easily. It will also help them get in touch with people from different backgrounds, this will them to explore newer field and cultures.
- No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution
- No, I do not wish to be considered for this prize, even if the prize funder is specifically interested in my solution
- Yes, I wish to apply for this prize
Our solution will help underprivileged students from different communities get access to education easily. It will also help them get in touch with people from different backgrounds, this will them to explore newer field and cultures.

Founder, CEO