PROPOSAL: To fund a Job-Focused learning application for women towards IT & Software Engineering Jobs
Our country must make a commitment to teaching every child computer science. That doesn’t mean teaching watered-down content and using simple coding apps but a strong curriculum that leads students to achieve real deep and broad mastery of computer science.
~ 21st century bunkum: What do we value about kids learning to code, and why?
Meraki’s vision is to build and sustain an android application, focused at making programming and digital skills accessible to the learners from different communities, through a smartphone, and working to create direct job opportunities or admissions to aspirational training programs. Meraki’s focus area is young women and girls, given the dismal representation of the women in the IT Sector.
Problem: Underrepresentation of marginalised and underserved communities especially women in science and technology is a universal phenomenon. The under-representation is a result of direct and systemic deprivation of lack of education, access, resources and opportunities for our marginalised communities in computer science. Given the increase in the digital divide, the issue needs immediate attention more than ever to bring equality, equity and representation of students from underserved families for the larger interest of our society.
Solution: Imparting technical and theoretical skills is one way to work towards bridging the gap. However, it is important to have the following to ensure our students continue to have access, learn, choose and pursue careers in tech:
Our Product: Meraki is a mobile app developed by NavGrukul to bring programming to young women in schools and colleges.
Current Market and Our Competitive Advantage: There has been a boom in e-learning platforms however**,** current e-learning platforms do not address the unique barriers of young women learners owing to limited resources and access. Additionally, there is a deficit of handholding and support which our students require. Both the issues are getting addressed by Meraki through our app, using mobile devices to learn, contextualized content, and chat support.
Funding Requirement: We are seeking funding of INR10,290,000 for our first-year growth of acquiring and impacting 1,00,000 students/ users with at least 1000 jobs/aspirational training opportunities for women.