Weekly Update - A New, More Focused Vision

There was a major change in direction this week. All the GDL team members refined their vision for the coming year, and carved out very focused project descriptions that will aid in delivery.

Asking myself where my interest lay, I realized I wanted to work in helping technology solve a developmental issue. One of the key topics of discussion in Bagar is that of livelihood, and my project focuses on the intersection of computers and employment.

More specifically, I define the core purpose of my project as “To provide skills and help discover opportunities for employment in entry-level computer-based jobs”. My target for the year is “40 people employed in computer-based jobs by July 2008”. I propose to do this by starting a training class for employable age people (22-35 yrs of age), that focuses on providing skills towards entry-level computer-based jobs that are currently in demand in industry.

The first step to creating an employment-oriented curriculum is to find where the job openings lie. Thus, my goal for the month of June is to cover an extensive list of sources (educational institutions, local business, industry associations, corporations, government agencies etc) to find the top 5 entry-level computer-based jobs. I will be developing an initial list of sources to target. I will be posting a more updated version of this list, along with my findings, next week.

One of the open questions in my proposal is that in order maximize the potential of the investment in computers, should the Piramal Foundation also look into offering IT literacy courses that are not focused on employment. This could target younger students, teachers and anybody else looking for basic computer literacy, at an affordable price. I wanted to determine the feasibility of such a center in Bagar.

Another NGO, Abhinav Pragiti Samiti, had operated such a center from 1999-2003. To assess the feasibility of setting up a center on our own, I thought it would be important to learn from their experience. A few key learnings came from speaking to administrators and a former instructor from the NGO: there was quite a bit of demand for these courses, there is seasonally peak demand during the summer school break, people still asked for computers after the center stopped offering these courses, and one of the main reasons the center failed was an inability to keep a regular teacher – most teachers were let go or left on their own after 3-4 months.

I believe that learning from these, and working with the existing computer centre operators in Bagar, we could design a center that can offer IT literacy skills to a large percent of the population.