Women in Technology Educates Parikrma NGO Students

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a huge loss of human life worldwide. People’s health and livelihoods got affected resulting in both social and economic disruption. The weaker sections of society got impacted much harder with no or limited means of livelihood. Education of children got hit badly in a situation where feeding oneself and the family became more difficult. The Women in Technology (W!T) group from Sabre Bengaluru therefore decided to bring in a ray of hope to many during this pandemic by choosing to help with the education needs of some of these less privileged children (with special focus on educating the girl child). The goal of the effort also involved generating curiosity in these young minds about technology while setting the stage for them in their formative years to be the technologists of the future. As a step towards achieving this goal the WIT team partnered with Parikrma Humanity Foundation, an NGO in Bangalore, to coach 60 children pursuing Grade 8. We faced several challenges along this journey – getting adequate volunteers, designing the curriculum, preparing the technical content to be delivered, sorting out challenges with the virtual format of the sessions and setting up online assessments just to name a few. Despite it all, we recently completed a 3-week engagement with the children on HTML coding. This engagement was completely voluntary and done in addition to the day-to-day work. The entire initiative was managed just like any other large program starting with collaborating with the NGO to understand their requirements and the needs of the children, forming a group of volunteers for each of the selected topics (HTML being the first, to be followed by Computer Networks & E-Commerce, Advanced Excel and Introduction to Programming languages), planning the course, estimating efforts, scheduling sessions, conducting dry runs to test the connectivity for all participants via the finalized communication platform and finally implementing or delivering the course content. The children did not have access to even a shared computer in school and the only item of luxury to claim possession was refurbished smartphones with limited internet access. Nevertheless, the children would join the online sessions well ahead of time and it was heartening to observe many exhibiting a keen interest in learning new technologies. We had 98% participation in the final assessment and 88% cleared the tests. I am truly happy to have contributed as the Program Lead of this CSR initiative by the W!T group. Helping these first-generation learners impacted by social and education inequity has been a highly enriching and gratifying experience for me. The success of this program is a testimony to the great collaboration and dedication demonstrated by the group of volunteers who participated in this initiative. Here’s what the other volunteers have to share: “I was personally thrilled and inspired by their aspirations. I am glad that I had an opportunity to motivate, support and shape students’ academic growth via W!T in a manner consistent with community values and building a strong foundation for our future technologists.” – Priya Dhandapani, Director Software Engineering “Volunteering in this good cause gave me a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I am proud to be able to do something good for others and the community.” – Laxmi Jahagirdar, Team Lead Software QA Engineering “Teaching has always been my passion and this opportunity is special as it is tied to a social cause and feeds my passion.” – Jayashree Jayabalan, Manager Software Engineering “I am very happy that I could be part of this noble initiative. I will cherish this memory that puts a smile on my face and appreciation in my heart.” – Rajalakshmi Varadarajan, Senior Scrum Master “It was a quite a pleasure to volunteer for this initiative. Interacting with and mentoring these students was something I looked forward to everyday, and I am happy that I was able to give back to the community.” – Sai Vignesh, Associate Software Engineering “I started my career with HTML coding, being able to share this knowledge now with Parikrma children gives me great happiness.” – Shailashree Araganji, Manager Software Engineering “I feel very grateful to be a part of this noble cause, we understood the passion of the students to learn or figure out how to practice a program based on our guidance.” – Sravani, K, Team Lead Software Engineering “Working with Parikrma over the last few months has been great and very fulfilling. Partnering with both teams from Sabre and Parikrama has been an incredible experience and I have personally loved the challenges and overall experience.” – Rachel Eugene, Team Lead Business Ops & Planning “Taking some time from our daily schedules doesn’t really take away much from our lives but yes it does create a ripple effect in the betterment of the children and the society, I feel truly privileged to have been a part of this noble cause” – Himabindu Vaddepalli, Senior Software Engineering “I was glad when I got this opportunity to contribute to the society. The best part of it all was the efforts from the students to overcome the hitches of limited resource access proving stronger will can defy all odds.” – Thoshita Kasula, Associate Product Analyst