Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India launched the Flagship National Digital India Literacy Mission in 2015 and has reached 110,000+ persons so far, Proud to be BITSian Rakesh Suri launched in 2012 itself his Mission with Passion Computer Shiksha whose current footprint has 90000+ students; 460+ Computer Shiksha enabled centers spread over 14 states viz., Assam, U.P., M.P., Delhi, Haryana, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Punjab, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Kerala and West Bengal and 1100+ trained teachers.
Computer Shiksha - CS is an 80G, 12A certified and FCRA approved non-profit organization, working towards enabling computer literacy among the under-served communities. CS helps provide computer literacy for the under-served at places (schools) where students are already regularly attending classes. CS provides computers and also delivers a complete package including video course-ware, training, monitoring, evaluation, free lifetime maintenance support and certification. All the services of CS come free as a pay back to society.
CS Vision is to bridge the divide between “haves” and “have-nots” using technology and Mission is to build an ecosystem for providing Computer Knowledge and Training with passion and commitment, to deliver value in the form of Computer trained people, who use this skill for the betterment of their lives in every possible way and to use technology to deliver solutions & reduce challenges faced by Underserved communities in every walk of life.
Dr. Rakesh Suri, (Founder) of CS has PhD in Management (AMU), BE (Hons) from Institution of Eminence BITS Pilani, ex CEO IT Division, DCM Ltd., currently Entrepreneur, a TEDx speaker. In 2017 he had been nominated as one of the 18 people in India to watch out for by New Indian Express. He was Invited as a speaker to Socio-innovation summit at Los Angeles, USA in June 2019 and to BITSync at SFO in Sep 2019. Computer Shiksha team includes Sandeep Rana, ManMohan Thandi, Arjun Verma, Rajeev Lochan and Sharad Agarwal, Sumit Malhotra, Anil Singhal, Rajiv Popli, Rajesh Gulati, Raj Singh, Prem Kumar, Akshay Kapadia and Naresh Khosla. Pradeep Marwaha who is also a Proud to be BITSian is currently Vice President of Computer Shiksha. He had been earlier with Teach for Mission and had been former country manager at Cray Research International Inc (Eagan).
The curriculum imparted includes Learning Uses and Parts of a computer; Using Paint to draw, File Management, Text processing & formatting, using spreadsheets as database and calculator, Presentation Skills, Internet applications for browsing & searching, E-mailing, Uploading & Downloading files and all learning is practical in nature with each student working on a dedicated computer. While the Basic Course duration is 12 to 24 weeks, Basic Plus Course is 19 to 38 weeks and Advanced Course is 24 to 48 weeks.
CS ensures partner schools to conduct classes by enabling teachers with resources in the form of self-learning videos to facilitate classes. The entire set of Self Learning Videos in 7 languages. Viz. Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali and Oriya complete with the teachers' manual available on the Computer Shiksha website / YouTube link for free download. CS also supports schools in arranging the required hardware (computers, projectors etc.) including their maintenance. CS also conducts evaluation to certify the participants.
Supporting Organizations for Computer Shiksha include MPS, C.K. Birla Group, Polaris, Virtusa, Excel Warehousing, Bajaj Auto, Kisankraft, SKF, Sanofi, G.E., MaxLife Insurance, GenPact, Ford Motors, BCG, ICICI Bank, RBL, Volkswagen and many more. It is indeed a matter of pride that all financial statements and IT returns are uploaded on the CS website.
CS has won the top award in the ‘Education & Learning’ category amongst 331 entries from NGOs from SAARC countries in the E-NGO challenge, held on 25.02.2017 at Prayag 2017, Surajkund, Faridabad. CS has been certified to be having ‘Desirable Norms prescribed for Good Governance of voluntary organizations” by CAI, Credibility Alliance, a global organization certifying NGOs. CS has got a great honour from Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India which goes as “We are glad to inform you that your incredible initiative has been selected to be part of the National Report on “Documentation & Compilation of the best practices of Sustainable Development”
When Team Computer Shiksha says OUR GOAL is to have a million students on rolls i.e. 10 lakhs children by March 2022, they indeed mean it and look forward to receive support from all well wishers. Rakesh Suri presented the credentials of Computer Shiksha to the alumni of Birla Institute of Technology and Science – BITS Pilani from various continents who have assembled at BITSAA Global Meet BGM 2020 Goa on 18 Jan 2020.
For more details see http://www.computershiksha.org/
Rakesh Suri
Founder & President,
Computer Shiksha.
M: +91-9810498433
Call CS Helpline: 91-92051 76400
Email: rakesh.suri@computershiksha.org
Email: connect@computershiksha.org
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rakesh-suri-6377b12/
Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/c/ComputerShiksha
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ComputerShiksha?ref=hl
Website: http://www.computershiksha.org/
In today’s world being educated by no means is about knowing only English, Hindi and Mathematics. One would not be able to survive in today’s digital world, nor get benefit of Government services, if one did not know, how to use computers. In addition, there would be no job in future where some or other computer application would not be there, which will make a non-computer educated person a misfit for that job and consequently in our society. Hence knowing computers is no more a luxury but a basic necessity.
Computer Shiksha came into existence as a dream of IT and management professionals who vowed to address the challenge of Digital Divide. Digital Divide is a very serious and prevalent issue which is not being addressed by most institutions. The major pain points are expensive hardware, maintenance of this hardware, lack of trainers (if a trainer is good, then why he/she wouldn’t work in industry and earn more rather than in school/NGO), improper curriculum, lack of delivery mechanism and total disconnect between Government prescribed course and what industry may prefer.
To address these aspects, Computer Shiksha was born and after interactions with the various schools/NGOs , it became clear that unless all these pain points are addressed by Computer Shiksha free of cost, computer education cannot take off.
