Creating Changemakers in the 21st Century

[Music]

all right before i start

uh i know what after lunch feels like

uh i would like to i’m gonna go back

don’t worry

this is just to wake the people up so uh

before

we get to the talk i’m gonna give you

some instructions

and i want you to be nice people kind

people and

follow exactly what i say is that clear

there’s something called an energizer

that we do in our

classrooms as teachers and fellows

because

after lunch most of our children have

eaten so much rice

it’s hard to teach them why two plus two

is four and not an app

right so what i’m going to tell you

right now

is you will stand up at your place when

i tell you to

i will do some gestures you’re going to

copy it

i will make a noise you’re going to copy

it

the gestures are going to repeat itself

or themselves

uh every time the

the voice goes louder the gesture goes

louder is that clear

so if my voice is really low the gesture

is really small

make sense let’s do it everyone stand up

at your place

if i see anyone sitting down i’m gonna

come to your place

personally and make you do this that’s

what we do with our kids

all right first gesture

yeah hey there is a guy who’s

constantly trying to make a joke out of

this but guess what

we will not care we’re going to do this

again

foreign

foreign

[Applause]

[Music]

m

all right no remote cool i’ll tell you

change now

am i standing at the right place yeah

good afternoon guys now that i’ve woken

you up

i’m going to be talking about things

that are comfortable

uncomfortable things that would make you

happy sad

every time you feel an emotion it’s okay

to feel it it’s okay to show it

you feel proud of something that i’ve

done clap you feel

that this is something that uh was

impossible

show it i want to see your emotions when

you bring them out

we’re going to be talking about creating

leaders

in the 21st century and not the kind of

leaders that we are talking about

in general we are going to be talking

about leaders from the lower income

communities today yeah

next but before we start

let’s look at some brilliant stories

saraswati a student from a government

school a 7th grader

goes on to the best school in hyderabad

at 120 scholarship the peace of school

annually is about 10 lakh rupees for the

next five years

how does she do it no idea let’s look at

some more stories right

ravi and pranay win the biggest talent

hunt of hyderabad

to get the award as a six-week

foreign internship both of them from are

from the same government school

god knows how this happened

a kid in the same government school

imran

identifies that the problem in the

community

a lot of it comes through the alcohol

that the fathers consume

a lot of domestic violence comes out of

it a lot of monetary issues comes out of

it

so imran says let’s fix this problem

imran

creates an anti-alcohol campaign and

conducts this across

the community and ensures that multiple

fathers

quit this habit forever

well then we have the queen who realizes

that i think there is another gap in the

community

parents are not as educated as they

should be

to understand what our needs are let’s

start parental classes over the weekends

when we are free

we will take them for the parents and

hopefully that’s why parents would

listen

crazy right all of them from a

government school

and something is common about them

let’s see what that is next

how next

ah is it me

i’ll take the credit a little later but

let’s let’s move on to the real

uh reasons why these kids have been uh

going ahead the first reason i think is

leadership

leadership uh shown by these children

at the age that they’re at from the

places that they come from

sounds impossible right the second

reason is resilience

resilience is a word that we are looking

at today and

these kids embody resilience the houses

they come from

some of them don’t have enough to eat

some of them don’t have the next uniform

even though it’s torn completely some of

them don’t have parents to go up to and

talk

some of them don’t have a the money

to reach the school so if they get 10

bucks they reach the school if they

don’t

they bunk that day a lot of these

students

embodied resilience right and the last

thing

was a secret ingredient that we are

going to be talking about today and no

it’s not me

yeah next so

the leadership that i just said uh let’s

go to that and let’s see some numbers

how many youth oh i gave you the answer

it’s okay there are 35 percent

youngsters in this country

youth people who we define as the

strength and the pillar of a country

right people say india is going to

become a superpower tomorrow

because we have people such as

yourselves to support

it as a pillar right but you know how

many young

leaders we have in the whole country out

of the total leadership positions

we have our number here 0.01 young

leaders

let me guide you to the reason why there

is a reason

why youth are not at the top of the

leadership

and the reason is the brilliant

education system

created by our favorite people

who came around 18th century and uh

created this system because they

realized that okay

i think we need to give them

some education so that they don’t think

they’re being left out but let’s not

give them too much

so that they start figuring things out

and understanding oh

where do they belong so they give us

just the right kind of education

to make us clerks and bureaucrats

if you go research today the education

system in place today remains the same

and it was introduced to bring in clerks

and bureaucrats

to fill in the gap between the people

who ruled us

and the people who are being ruled and

these are in between

just trying to fill the gap education

system

has remained the same we still do rote

learning we still learn

integration and don’t know where to

apply it we still learn volume but we

can’t figure out how much water to drink

a day

we still figure out so many things but

our rainwater still goes down to waste

we still figure out ethics but hey

we know what happens in delhi every time

right

let’s see what happens next please

the the other thing resilience uh the

four five stories that i shared

the first girl her father

runs a small dosa bundy we call it

a small cart sells dosa for a living

he does decently well but he would have

never thought of sending his daughter to

a school like that

the other two kids who won those talent

shows

one of them lost his father to drinking

while i was in the school the third kid

that we speak of

i can’t even tell you what she’s going

through right now and

resilience is their best quality right

they

make me look at my problems and make me

believe that i am a fool to believe that

my problems are bigger

next but the last ingredient

is something i called camp diaries let

me tell you something about cam diaries

before we go ahead

government conducts certain camps in the

free days where they teach you things

like yoga vedic mathematics a few extra

curricular activities and generally the

principal or the head teacher of the

school gets to choose who gets to go

can you guess the gender of the person

who gets to go generally

i i need to hear it male right

so obvious to us we’re so proud of it

that’s what happened the first time so

my girls came up to me they’re like yeah

you talk about gender equality a lot you

keep boasting about these things

that girls and boys are equal and uh it

should be amazing for both of them

but why is this happening to us why

aren’t we getting to go

i said don’t worry next time it will

happen next time the same camp happens

the girls don’t get to go again

and when i found out the reason was

their safety concerns

there were no women teacher to escort

them to the residential camp

and you can’t leave girls there because

someone would do something

that’s our india because our because of

our great education system right

so i said don’t worry if you can’t go to

the camps i’ll bring the camps to you

so this is what cam diaries does right

we do camps

for lower income schools and we teach

them

everything that they otherwise wouldn’t

get to learn or otherwise couldn’t

afford to learn

we bring dreams that are too expensive

in the real world

to their doorstep so that they can

attain them next

let’s watch it let’s watch what we do

[Music]

you can clap now it’s okay i wouldn’t

mind that

but that’s not it right that’s not the

fun part i’ll tell you what the fun part

is the first year when we were starting

this the first camp i did

there were 18 people who called me by

night and said don’t worry i’ll bring

the resources you don’t worry i’ll bring

the food

oh milan i’m going to be there i’ll

teach them this skill i’ll tease them

that skill

next morning 7 am out of 130 kids guess

how many were there

guess well zero

guess how many volunteers were there

zero so resilience had to be shown

i stood there till 10 o’clock till the

first two kids showed up

hand in hand swingling around oh wow oh

yeah you are here oh we thought you

won’t come i said i thought you won’t

come cool

now you are here now go wake up everyone

else bring them here until then i’ll go

get the volunteers

that’s how cam diaries started right we

started with a failure

but it wasn’t a failure because even in

that environment every child learned

so we gave it a good idea we said all

right let’s plan this let’s strategize

this

we said let’s give them four extra

curricular skills four co-curricular

skills stance drama art and craft

and oh what do we do forth um

yeah guitar so we said let’s do these

four skills and then let’s do public

speaking

coding brain games like rubik’s cube

chess and science experiments

let’s expose them to all eight first

because they don’t know what these

skills are

then after a weekend let’s make them

choose two extra curriculars and two

co-curriculars

then let’s make them choose one and one

then makes let’s make them choose one

and then master that until they become

independent learners so that they can

teach themselves

whenever wherever however we have jio

let’s let’s be honest yeah it’s easier

to learn things now it’s easier to

access the internet

and with that intention we started it we

wanted to impact

300 kids and that was my dream i thought

i would fulfill it and i would

feel like i’ve attained everything in

life and that’s how it started

well what’s different i i’ll run you

through it the first thing that’s

different is

we make them independent learners the

second thing that’s different is

the activities are chosen by them and

the third thing that’s different is our

curriculum in science experiment for

example we teach them vertical farming

we teach them how to generate

electricity out of a potato we teach

them how to create a rainwater

harvesting system

in uh in drama we don’t teach them just

to do a funny drama we teach them street

play

and we make them perform the street play

for a showcase in dance we make make

them

teach we teach them a contemporary piece

which could save trees tomorrow

in let us say an art and craft class

they learn how to create best out of

waste we are trying our best to teach

them things

that would make them better individuals

next

well by year one these were our

figures we had reached four cities in

year one hyderabad

bangalore m dabad and chennai we had

already impacted

thousand two thousand plus kids with

thousand plus volunteers

that wasn’t the aim we did not know how

to do this

next it came the second year so we

thought let’s cool it down let’s not

expand anymore let’s not go to any more

cities let’s understand our product well

so this is what we did we got all four

cities independent of each other

they were running all by themselves they

did not want any monitoring they did not

want any resources nothing they’ll take

care of themselves

they had over 2000 volunteers and they

had already impacted 5000 kids

so around this time i thought all right

it’s time to move on and go to next

things and i’ll tell you what the next

things were next please

our aim my aim and head was let’s do

some exponential growth right now i’m

going to throw some numbers at you and

you will not believe them

numbers are if there are 10 000

volunteers or leaders or change makers

that each work with 200 students over a

course of their lifetime

and they inspire every child to work

with 10 more students in their lifetime

they could impact two core students

unrealistic right seems like oh my god

what if what is this guy even talking

about does he understand the number

i do next slide

one day my children come up to me and

they say bhaiya

we have an idea you have been doing this

brilliant project

cam diaries and you are trying to impact

as many students as possible but

you are not reaching every child in our

community and that’s unfair

i said i know but it’s hard to reach

every child because they’re not in our

school

so they said okay don’t worry don’t

worry we have a plan they came up with a

plan called children’s cam diaries they

said we’ll run it

by the students for the students we’ll

figure out the resources

the first camp was executed in front of

me and i was told to reach there

and at the door i was given two

instruction instruction number one

may i click a lot of pictures have fun

two

do not poke your nose into our business

we understand you have been doing this

for two years but we’ll take care of it

six hours later guys 100 other

children from the lower income

communities were taught by 13 student

change makers

and it made me cry the picture you see i

was literally crying while i was bending

down because that’s how

strong i strongly i felt about this and

till date

they’ve already impacted 500 students of

their own

[Applause]

how do they do it no idea next which is

why

i have a poem for you please volunteer

next

not for the money not for the fame not

for your

personal gain not for a selfie or an

award

do it for satisfaction your only reward

do it if you dare to care do it if you

want to share

do it for there is no end to

chill do it because if you want

maybe no one else will yeah

next well let’s talk about a little

resilience from my story

i was a i was initially resilient to

become fat so i thought all right let’s

eat everything in the world

and so i grew up to be 120 kg baby

and ridiculed by everyone bullied

irritated

angry at the world i was resilient to be

a bad kid

technically then i was resilient to

learn

so then i found some inspiration and i

lost all the weight

and i became a better student then i was

resilient to do everything that was

right in life so i learned the guitar

then i learned dancing then i learned

everything possible

then i started volunteering and while i

was volunteering my parents told me okay

better be time okay now go for ims

right technically next logical step for

any it engineer

is ims and that is when things changed

for me

well i wrote cat i’ve written cat for

five years now and every year i’ve

scored 98.99 plus percentile i’ve gotten

through a lot of imps every year

but but that’s not the aim the aim

was to do something that was different

which is why

i went for teach for india fellowship

which allowed me

to be in a government school for two

years full time and make a change

on the ground understand the ground

reality and

then come back and say all right now i’m

ready to do an mv if that’s what it

needs

but well that wasn’t happening we both

know that that wasn’t my goal

so then i started a school right here in

pune well i didn’t started i teach

school started it

and i was the principal in the school

recruited every teacher trained them

responsible for government relations ngo

partnerships donor relations did

everything

in nine months and that’s when someone

found me

next come on dude

well it was one of your own people

kalyani from this very college and

you know when you do a lot of work and

when there are a lot of articles about

you

someone somewhere finds you and says

this guy

maybe he’s not the best but maybe he can

represent a data set

i was representing change makers on a

show

where she found me uh

equivalent of a real hero she took me on

mtv roadies real heroes last year

and it helped us the aim of going on the

show was finding more volunteers and

that’s exactly what happened next

we were able to increase the number of

students that we have impacted

and the number of students that we have

impacted now are

we moved to nine cities now we have over

twelve thousand volunteer applicants

and we have impacted ten thousand

students plus right last

video play it

and we are going to continue to create

that

[Music]

i

can am the world

[Music]

children

destiny does not have to define who you

are

you define who you are your life choices

define who you are

you choose if you want to be a leader

you choose if you want to be a volunteer

and if you’re choosing not to be a

volunteer it’s your choice to chill a

little bit

more it’s your choice to sleep a little

bit more it’s your choice to not

change the chaos that’s going on in this

country

every day while you don’t know about it

and when you know about it as well

you choose to do something so be a smart

person

and choose something better because

everything that i did made me a better

leader

if you join volunteering there’s a

chance you will become a better leader

but the bigger chances you will create

some leaders

and they will make the change for you

eventually and then you can retire

and here i am retiring thank you guys