An engineer by training and founder of Project DEFY, Abhijit Sinha has spent years exploring what learning can look like when people are free to question, create and solve problems independently. His journey from a conventional software career to building community learning spaces began with a personal search for meaning and grew into an effort to rethink how people learn.
Growing up in Bombay, Abhijit was drawn to making, breaking and experimenting from an early age. With few toys at home, everyday objects became tools for his imagination. Suitcases, pressure cookers, wires and household materials offered opportunities to explore and create. This instinct led him to engineering, but his experience of formal education eventually made him question whether conventional systems truly encouraged curiosity and creativity.
From Engineering To A Different Kind Of Learning
Abhijit studied Computer Science because he believed engineering would allow him to build things and solve real-world problems. However, he found university life largely focused on examinations and memorising information rather than creating and experimenting.
While teaching himself through online learning platforms, he encountered a maker space started by someone from MIT. Abhijit began travelling from Bengaluru to his university on weekends to work on projects with practical applications.
For the first time, he experienced what it meant to use his skills to create things that could help people. The contrast with his software job eventually became difficult to ignore. After around six months of working, he left his job in Bengaluru and moved to Banjarapalya, a village outside the city, to rethink his career and approach to learning.
The Question That Led To Project DEFY
Abhijit’s move to Banjarapalya became a turning point. Although he had achieved what many considered conventional success, with a job, salary and professional stability, he did not feel fulfilled. He began questioning a system in which people spend years studying to secure jobs and then spend their working lives earning money while postponing happiness and freedom to the future.
In the village, he decided to start again. What began as a space for Abhijit himself soon attracted children. Initially, they came to play games on his phone, and he invited them to use bigger screens instead. Their siblings, parents and grandparents gradually joined too. Instead of following a fixed curriculum, the group gathered and decided what they wanted to explore, build or learn each day.
This experiment became the foundation for Project DEFY, an initiative built around the idea that communities can create their own learning environments, where people decide what, when and how they learn.
A Learning Space Designed By Its Learners
Abhijit created a space in Banjarapalya where he and other village residents gathered each day to decide what they wanted to learn together. Eventually called a Nook, the space welcomed children, young people, adults and older residents, including those in their late sixties and seventies.
Rather than following a predetermined curriculum, learners explored their interests, worked on projects and learnt through experimentation. People of different ages could share their knowledge, seek help from one another and collaborate on ideas. The emphasis was on taking ownership of learning rather than simply receiving information from a teacher.
Today, Project DEFY operates 32 Nooks across six countries, enabling around 2,000 learners to direct their own learning annually, according to figures shared by the organisation.
Learning Beyond The Classroom
Project DEFY’s approach places practical skills, community participation and intergenerational learning alongside conventional academic measures. Learners can work on projects that respond to their interests and everyday challenges, using available resources and collaborating with others to find solutions.
According to a recent internal survey covering a cross-section of learners, half earned an income while engaged in learning, 24% participated in solving a community problem, and 84% taught something to someone from another generation.
These figures point to outcomes that conventional education systems may not routinely capture. They suggest that learning spaces can become places where people develop practical capabilities, contribute to their communities and exchange knowledge across generations.
Rethinking The Role Of Education
For Abhijit, the experience in Banjarapalya reinforced the importance of curiosity and the freedom to experiment. A discarded object could become the starting point for a project, while a challenge encountered in everyday life could offer an opportunity to learn.
Some projects involved building boats; others included experimenting with LEDs on sarees or attempting to create a ball-throwing machine for dogs using discarded materials, motors and batteries. The emphasis was not merely on the finished product but on the process of figuring things out, making mistakes and trying again.
The experience also shaped his thinking about competition in conventional education. While schools often measure progress through marks and rankings, the Nook model encourages collaboration, with learners helping one another and sharing what they know.
Project DEFY grew from this experiment into a broader exploration of self-designed learning, challenging the assumption that education must always depend on standardised curricula, conventional classrooms and formal teachers.
From A Personal Experiment To A Global Initiative
What began as Abhijit’s attempt to find a more meaningful way to live and learn gradually developed into an initiative that supports communities in creating their own learning spaces. The Nooks provide an environment where people can pursue different interests, work together and take greater responsibility for their learning.
The model does not simply ask what people should learn. It also asks who gets to decide what learning looks like and how it connects with everyday life.
For Abhijit, the journey has been less about rejecting education and more about reimagining it around curiosity, autonomy, collaboration and real-world problem-solving.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
Education is often structured around classrooms, curricula, examinations and predetermined outcomes. Abhijit Sinha’s work through Project DEFY invites us to consider a complementary approach in which learners have greater freedom to shape their own educational journeys.
The Nook model places value on practical skills, community participation and the exchange of knowledge between generations. While alternative learning spaces are not a substitute for every function of formal schooling, they can expand the ways in which people learn and contribute to society.
At its heart, the idea is simple: education should help people become curious, capable and confident enough to shape their own futures. How can India create more learning environments where people have the freedom to decide what, when and how they learn?
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