ANUDIP FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL WELFARE

Low-income youth historically perform poorly in the human development index, depending on traditional occupations. Approximately 40 million youth are unemployed or underemployed in India and are unable to tap the livelihood opportunities offered by a growing digital economy. On the other hand, industry struggles to meet its manpower need despite large corpus of young dormant talent available. Our DIGITAL INCLUSION OF YOUNG ASPIRANTS (DIYA) program identifies this gap and focuses on equipping them with technology skills making them employable in organized sectors. The important technology pieces:

• CMIS, an in-house that built ERP that houses student data and tracks the journey of students through various stages of the program.
• DIYA app and English Learning app, an LMS that hosts the domain content in an engaging fashion and tracks student performance.
• FuturePro app aims to hone 21st Century behaviors in students encouraging them to communicate, collaborate, think critically and engage in self-learning.

Over 94% of India's working population is part of unorganized sector. Only 2.3% of our workforce living in rural and peri-urban India have undergone formal skills training, Consequently, India has a large population of youth~ 40 million who do not have the knowledge or skills to get employed. Every year a fresh 8-10 million are added to this pool, of which 6 million are graduates, only 20% of whom are considered employable.

On the other hand, India is a growing economy with massive opportunities for work. Digital disruption will add 1.4 million new IT jobs in India by 2027.

New age economy jobs and businesses demand technical knowledge, higher aptitude and meta-skills for problem solving, logical reasoning, communication and data science. Training content is largely struggling to keep pace with this. Also entry level jobs do not guarantee a sustainable career graph due to the agile nature of market. There is a dire need to re-skill and up-skill employees. Hence ‘learnability’ becomes instrumental in sustaining jobs.

 Our DIYA program helps youth from marginalized sections to pick up the skills that are in-demand such as Java, Dotnet, Cloud etc and helps them embark on stable careers. The right market-aligned skill sets mapped to the job roles available can help the unemployed and the under-employed secure aspirational jobs.Tthe newest component of DIYA, FuturePro, which builds core 21st Century behaviors such as curiosity, self-learning, critical-thinking and communication lays the foundation on which domain knowledge can be built, thus bridging the gap.

The beneficiaries of Digital Inclusion of Young Aspirants (DIYA) are boys and girls (typically 18-35 years old), from socio-economically weaker sections of society, at least with a school completion certification or with a college degree. They could be from any part of India including urban, semi-urban and rural areas, but students who are unemployed or under-employed (doing odd jobs) and are unable to find meaningful employment.

Anudip operates across 17 Indian States in India with 92 centers spread across. Annually we impact more than 30000 individuals. Over the years we have seen communities transform. A case in point is Metiabuz where 8 years back, girls would not leave their homes, today there are more than 1800 girls who are working on data annotation, ML and computer vision jobs. We are well-connected with government, academic institutions and local communities and hence we are able to select students carefully into our programs. Our large alumni base helps us get referrals of students who are seeking support and struggling. We have a drop-out rate of <5%.

Anudip works with a network of 300+ employer partners who hire our alumni. Often courses are designed in consultation with the employer, to ensure better selection rates. We maintain a constant track record of 70% placement. During the pandemic we were able to see students from remote areas get opportunities with firms such as Accenture, Cap Gemini, TCS, Infosys, Wells Fargo, Amazon etc. Our students see a 240% increase in family income post their placement.

The Challenge asks this very pertinent question ‘How can workers in India and Indonesia gain the skills they need to participate and prosper in the digital and technology-driven economy of the future?’

Our DIYA program along with FuturePro attempts to do just that. The DIYA program is 14 years old and is a skilling program with a bouquet of courses on technical domains such as web designing, hardware and networking, coding, java, cybersecurity etc. DIYA houses its content on an LMS and an app that can be used even while offline. English and soft skills is part of the DIYA program.However, many students cannot cope with the DIYA program because of poor meta skills.

Our solution FuturePro an app that builds the meta-skills that are needed for long-term sustainable careers in a dynamic environment. This component will help us build the foundation for several students post which higher level programs such as Java can be taught. This will bring many more students into the workforce.

Given the blended nature of the program, it is scalable; teachers can deliver FuturePro virtually, and we can reach a larger number of beneficiaries. FuturePro is unique in being able to generate insights on students learning behaviours. This could also be used for employers to hire or assess their workforce.

Thus our solution revolves around creating new resources for the digital economy, by honing critical thinking, self-learning and problem-solving skills which can then become the foundation for absorbing higher-order technical programs.

The Team Lead for this solution is Vibhor Goel, Chief Technology Officer at Anudip. 

Our solution lies in the bridge of progress developed between two very disparate worlds - one plagued by poverty and inequity, and the other offering aspirational new-age careers in AI data services, coding and networking.

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds are traditionally deprived of a good school education and consequently they pass exams by rote learning. Their thinking skills, communication, confidence and ability to approach a problem therefore remains under-developed. This deprives them of having an equitable chance at competing for the new-age jobs and thus keeps them generationally under-served.

We have seen first generation learners work on global projects and rising up the corporate ladder to managerial roles when they have received the right mentoring and opportunity to practice 21st Century skills. Here is an example of how our beneficiaries going from strength to strength and transforming not just their own lives but their families and communities.

The FuturePro component of the DIYA program focusses on building the 21st Century behaviours on which the new age digital skills can be built. It offers a chance to the millions in India and worldwide who have been deprived of access to a good education, mentor and opportunity to ask questions. Futurepro could be catalytic if delivered well and will provide the opportunity to learn by asking, thinking, solving problems, collaborating and communicating to those left behind. By building these skills in these cohorts, the IT, BFSI and several other industries will be able to create a fresh talent pool.

We serve the participants from underserved background through technology to ensure they are ICT literate for the 21st century. To do this scale, participants interact with the rich content hosted as SCORM packages on Moodle based LMS.

Example:

In the example given above, the “i” icon is an interactive button - and this interaction is captured and stored by the LMS. In the above example, the concept being discussed is: what if the crime scene photo was doctored? Our participants should find the word “doctored” challenging, and would like to understand it better. 

Analyzing and Visualising Data

The behaviour data stored in the data warehouse is visualized to develop Sunburst charts for an individual participant.

The sunburst chart in itself can be drilled down to see the modules that contributed to the values. Example: For Curiosity->Retention->Short term:

Data is analysed and visualized using Google Data Studio to get the aggregate views.

It allows us to slice and dice the way we want it. Following are a few examples.

ML based Feedback Analyser: Development in progress

Exit slips are very useful in creating the student engagement. An exit slip has the following items:

• Students need to synthesize the lecture’s content.

• Request for session feedback.

The key aspect of an exit slip is “multi-line feedback” by the participant which is a challenge to scale. Hence, the need to use the best in class NLP to help implement, analyse and obtain actionable insights from Exit Slips.

Our Theory of Change :

At Anudip foundation, we serve the participants from the underserved background. We want to achieve the following:

• Make them curious learners with an ability to self-learn

• Train them to think critically as they encounter and solve problems

• Teach them to communicate effectively, and the value of collaboration and teamwork

• Expand their view of the world as global citizens – for example, a view enriched by self-awareness, empathy and cross-cultural understanding

• Ensure they are ICT literate for the 21st century; for example, they understand what cloud, analytics, mobile, social, security etc., mean, and how these relate to their lives

To do this scale, our Future Pro programme provides the following:

• Technology enabled Learning Experience that encourages, observes and captures the desired behaviour while teaching the necessary skills

• Technology integrated content that has the right markers to trigger and measure behaviours

• Blended delivery to ensure outcomes at scale

Anudip has impacted more than 150000 youth from the most
marginalized communities including tribals, migrants, victims
of trafficking, people with disabilities by helping them embark
on aspirational careers. On an average we have seen a
240% increase in family income after the student is placed in
jobs. This has resulted in a transformation in the family’s
lifestyle. In 2020-21 we will be help more than 75000
youngsters move their families out of poverty.
Our blended pedagogy and the industry-curated content
housed on the DIYA application has enabled us to scale

operations while keeping an eye on outcomes over the last
14 years. However, the growing demand for 21 st century
skills such as communication, critical thinking, curiosity,
ability to self-learn and teamwork puts students who come
from weaker economic backgrounds and government
schooling systems at a disadvantage. It is therefore
imperative that we focus on building what we term ‘learning
to think and learn’ in our youngsters. The first version of the
FuturePro platform is ready and it stands out in its ability to
generate insights on student learning behaviors at low cost.
With 5500 students already using the platform and
demonstrating sharp improvement in learning behaviors, all
future interventions will use FuturePro, in India and other
countries of Asia.
The outcomes would be curious youngsters, who would gain
equitable access to the jobs offered by the formal sector and
thus break free from their earlier shackles of poverty.
In the next 5 years we will impact more than 500000
students.

Anudip’s goal is to create lifelong learners and to bridge the gap between education and employment by providing market aligned technology-driven skills development programs for women & at-risk youth from difficult backgrounds in line with UN’s SDG 4 which focuses on inclusive and equitable quality education, and SDG 8 decent work and economic growth. Statistics demonstrating the need :

• More than 300 million people living in India are below the government-defined poverty line
• Over 94% of India's working population is part of unorganized sector.
• Only 2.3% of our workforce living in rural and peri-urban India have undergone formal skills training, as compared to 68% in UK, 75% in Germany, 52% in US.
• Only 25% of India’s labour force is female ;97% of them engaged in low-paying activities and domestic work

In the age group 15-29, the figures are
Demonstrable Achievements:

• • 100,000+ direct beneficiaries
  • 500,000 indirect beneficiaries
  • 75>#/span### job placements
  • 300>#/span### increase in family income
• Business-initiated through IT-Crowdsourcing women cooperatives = 1200
• Persons with Disabilities 
  • Trained = 3000
  • Placed = 1800

For over a decade, Anudip has been training youth and placing them in technology jobs thereby transforming lives and uplifting communities with outstanding outcomes in livelihood generation and community transformations 

The FuturePro application is ideally used in a blended fashion of self-learning interspersed with facilitator-driven sessions. It received initial funding for 2 years to build version 1.0, to pilot and test it. The following are the potential barriers to success and impact

• Absence of a strong Facilitator training module and hand-holding support. This is currently developed and is being tested. We hope to include the learnings and iterate on this if necessary.
• Absence of funds to build key markers in the tech platform to drive better exploration, retention and critical thinking. The version 1.0 exists, but v 2.0 will need to be built to enhance features such as a chatbot, additional content and reporting dashboards.
• Absence of funds to market the product and implement it successfully. Taking this product to market and maintaining the standards of delivery will need a strong team to drive this. At a later stage, we hope to bring in a user-based revenue for sustenance. In about 2 years this product can also be used by hiring organisations to hire freshers based on behaviour demonstration. Hence revenue sources for long -term sustenance of this product can be carved out.

Teacher training module: We have developed and tested this on a group of 30 facilitators with very good results. A detailed facilitator has already been developed. As we scale, we will receive more feedback and we will keep building on this module. Our in-house 24/7 content and learning teams are working on this, headed by our CLO, an industry-veteran with 30 years of l&D experience.

 V2.0 Futurepro: We are seeking additional funds for this from various sources and are confident of being able to secure this soon.

 Take to market: We have already demonstrated this product and its outcomes to various state governments and have received interest from the governments of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. Hence we are confident of being able to get a student base from various government and government aided colleges and institutions to start with. What we need is to build a team to manage and govern this, for which at this stage we need funds. We have received interest from a few existing Corporate partners as well to integrate this program with the existing ones. Later the maintenance and governance costs will come from a blend of student fees and employer fees.

 We have a total strength of 576 employees working towards the solution. Out of which, 443 are full time, 116 are consultants and 17 part-time staff. 

The leadership is an eclectic group with diverse experiences that contribute to different aspects of program success. These are Community connect, Corporate Relations, Govt Relations, M & E and governance, Curriculum,  L & D, Technology and Finance.

 The combined experience of the senior leadership team is over 300 years. They embody and imbibe the Anudip values of life-long learning, equality, accountability, teamwork and adoption of technology in all that they do.

Technology is at the backbone of all we do at Anudip, whether it is the training, or management of the student lifecycle. The FuturePro product is held by our CTO, who comes with over 20+ years of tech experience in Corporate and has also led a not-for-profit in the learning space. Our CLO comes with years of training corporates and hence understand employer needs but also has worked on large scale social impact projects with entities such as IFC internationally. My background of having worked in the business of managing training operations in a commercial and social sector has enabled me to grow the company 2x in the last 3 years. We have also been certified “great place to work’ for 2 years in a row.

As an organization we have a ‘no discrimination’ policy that ensures that we give equal opportunities to all human beings irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, caste, religion etc. Being a woman myself we have a been able to keep a strong eye on the gender balance at work. 44% of the management team (managers and above) comprise women and 38% of the Senior Leadership team is female. The goal is to bring more women into the senior leadership for which we have embarked on a high-pot training program that will pave the way for growth to deserving women.

 Being a training organization that skills on non-traditional digital skills we have set ourselves a mandate of trying to bring in parity in our student base as well. Currently about 44% of the students we train are girls, and we would like to take that percentage to 50% by 2024. Many of our staff members are our own students and this brings the socio-economically weaker section into our umbrella.

• DONOR/CSR PARTNERSHIPS: Microsoft, Google, NetHope, JPMC, Bank of America, Cisco, HT Parekh, HSBC, Titan, ITC, National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC),  Accenture, ICRA, Wells Fargo, HSBC,  HT Parekh, Capgemini, ICRA to offer digital skills.
• EMPLOYER PARTNERS: Accenture, Tata Consultancy, Walmart, Netscribes, iMerit, Tech Mahindra, Capgemini, and 350 others.
• TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS: Anudip’s open-source, Moodle-based Learning Management System uses de-facto industry standard SCORM (a set of technical standards for e-learning software products),to deliver multimedia courses. Our basic training curricula is developed in-house as well as licensed from courseware providers - Khan Academy, Udemy, Wadhwani Foundation, Cisco, NetHope, and Alison

Our model implemented through 92+ of our centres present in 17 Indian States can be broadly categorized into the following steps:

1. Mobilization & Enrolment: Our team of local Marketing Executives  conduct seminars and workshops in collaboration with NGOs on ground working with these beneficiary segments to ensure we reach out to the right students. 

2. Training Delivery. The curriculum encompasses digital skills with employability-aligned skill-sets, interactive multimedia and games designed to create a blended learning environment along with 21st century skills and English Skills

4. Assessment and Certification: Anudip conducts baseline, mid-term and end-term assessment for each student as part of its standardization and quality assurance across various levels of operational activity

4. Placement/Post Placement Support and Mentoring: Anudip’s DIYA program provides 100% support and hand-holding for students during the placement process and post placement support.

We are seeking additional funds for this from various sources and are confident of being able to secure this soon. We have already demonstrated this product and its outcomes to various state governments and have received interest from the governments of Indian States where we operate. Hence we are confident of being able to get a student base from various government and government aided colleges and institutions to start with. What we need is to build a team to manage and govern this, for which at this stage we need funds. We have received interest from a few existing Corporate partners as well to integrate this program with the existing ones. Later the maintenance and governance costs will come from a blend of student fees and employer fees.

Anudip would seek support in the following core areas:

1. Business model: Our approach integrates lessons learnt from research and best practices, builds on existing and sound scientific evidence, and has the additional potential to generate results and evidence that might be useful for future projects in similar or different settings. Our concrete activities have been systematized and externally and independently evaluated; and we are look forward to leverage our market-fit, strategy and development.
2. Financial:  We propose to use the funds as described below:

• Expansion of operations to be able to reach out to more high need communities PAN INDIA and in other emerging economies
• Capacity Building of mid-level managers
• Reach out to diverse groups of beneficiaries ( LGBTQ , Victims of Trafficking, PWD etc.) to grow our base

3. Technology / Technical Support: Investing in product innovation and research; and leveraging new products in the pipeline like the tech driven platform for bringing small and micro business owners to take their businesses online through digital training