Pi Jam Foundation

Supported by: Wipro

About Pi Jam Foundation

Incorporated in 2017, Pi Jam Foundation is an award winning nonprofit on a mission to equip children with access to affordable and enhanced quality of computer education, which builds skills essential for the 21^st century digital age.

Why?

Over 100 million students in government and affordable private schools face reduced access to computers (only 26.42% of schools have computers in India according to the NUEPA Report data 2014-15. This, together with outdated curricula, lack of dedicated, trained ICT/CS teachers, comprises a unfavorable ecosystem of computer education at the school level. Creative Problem Solving’ is touted as the essential skill of the future (WEF Report 2018) – one that has the capacity to make it or break it for the human potential in coming years. Computer Science and Creative Problem Solving are two sides of the same coin, the science being a knowledge base for the skill and the skill providing excellence and clarity for the science. Lack of digital and problem solving skills from an early age have been identified as the biggest reason for these numbers. The majority of India’s municipal, government, and affordable private schools lack the right ecosystems to nurture these.

How?

Pi Jam Foundation’s solution to the problem focuses on ensuring that we reduce the barriers for high quality CS education, such as cost, infrastructure, skilled teachers, etc. Our aim is to equip the schools with the tools and skills. They must become a ‘model school’ that prepares students to be future-ready. Its possibility is envisaged through a process that has the following aspects.

Demonstrate: Pi Labs are the proof points for student-learning outcomes in a holistic ecosystem

Role Model: Teacher training to enhance the skills of existing ICT/STEM teachers in the system

Advocacy: To enable adoption of Computer Science curriculum and best practices at scale through government partnerships

Impact

In the 3+ years since our inception, we have impacted over 15,000 students directly through the classroom and have been able to deliver our curriculum to over 60,000 students via the National Diksha Portal in the past year (under the COVID-19 circumstances).

Geographies

• Maharashtra: Pune, Mumbai, Parbhani (rural)
• Telangana: Hyderabad
• Karnataka: Haliyal (rural)
• Kashmir: Baramulla, Srinagar, Anantnag

Future Plans

Over the next 1-3 years, Pi Jam aims to move the needle on Computer Science education in the country through our ‘role modeling’ and ‘advocacy’ initiatives, while continuing to demonstrate on-ground impact through our Pi Labs, which serve as proof points for Computer Science curriculum and best pedagogy practices. We are planning to drive the adoption of Computer Science curriculum and pedagogy at scale through state, district and block-level partnerships across the country.