Shivam: From A Labourer To A Software Engineer

Once in a while, we come across stories of students from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, through their sheer hard work and grit, breaking barriers and doing well in their lives-A tea seller’s child cracked IIT; A Rickshaw puller’s son cracked AIIMS examination, and so on. Such stories inspire us and give us hope that there is more to the future of our country than what we could otherwise imagine.These success stories give us an insight into the person’s struggles and their determination to overcome those. NanGurkul is creating those success stories.

However, the reason these stories come in newspapers, TV and online media is that they are rare. If they were too common, none would bother talking about them. In a country like India, where having a poor socioeconomic background is a norm, don’t we need these stories to be created from every village, regularly?

Shivam: From a daily wager to software engineer

Shivam’s father used to work as a local merchant who would buy and sell things on a daily basis to make a living. However, his father lost a lot of money due to his drinking issues. During this time, Shivam grew distant from him due to his constant drinking issues. His father would also constantly beat his mom and create hindrance to his studies. His father was on a run after he was charged with petty theft, because of which Shivam had to drop out of school.

But Shivam was determined to go back to school and earn a respectable living, something that his father failed to do. Though keen on learning Science, he joined Commerce to save on expenses, with the help of his grandmother.

After completing 12th, joined a local bakery to make ends meet and then worked at a call centre. He slogged for 12 hours a day, 30 days a month for a meagre salary of ₹5000. At this point, he was introduced to NavGurukul. After one-year of rigorous self-study at NavGurukul, Shivam learnt Software Engineering. He could comfortably code in python and javascript, with a strong understanding of frameworks like Django, angularjs and node.js. With his knowledge of programming, Shivam got a ₹35,000 job at Augmax Labs, Hauz Khas, New Delhi.

About NavGurkul

NavGurukul was started by Abhishek, an IIT Delhi alumnus and Rishabh Verma, a high school dropout. NavGurukul teaches underprivileged students to code and helps them get jobs to secure their future. Students, who have been largely ignored out of the mainstream education system are enrolled at NavGurukul and go through an intense training to ensure that they are job-ready in Software Development. NavGurukul doesn’t admit students just on the basis of their academic score. Instead, there is a very simple assessment test, passing which the student can join the institute and work for his or her future.

Personalised Learning: NavGurukul’s emphasis on individual learning through technology and a full-time facilitator ensures that no student stays behind. Industry thus gets access to the first-rate talent without incurring high costs to find the needles in the haystack.

Most of us have had access to good higher education and exposures that enabled us to achieve what we have been able to achieve. However, these students are usually left with vocations like data entry, accounting, or working as a beautician. While these vocations are equally important, but there is a systemic denial of higher order skills to them.

Today, NavGurukul runs a one-year residential course to train these students in Software Engineering. Their first batch itself proved to be a success, with students getting salaries in the range of 15,000 INR to 40,000 INR. Students who were considered academic failures are now working on designing and developing software that we use on a daily basis. Having seen the success, NavGurukul has now set up institutions which can train about 120 students every year in Dharamsala and Bengaluru.NavGurukul further plans to increase this number to 180 and launch courses in Tourism and Clinical Psychology.

What’s even more interesting is that out of these 120 students, 70 students would be girl students as they are greatly underrepresented in the higher education. NavGurukul is further working on increasing the ratio of girls.

We wish them success to enable better access to future to all the students in the country.

If you know someone who should be a part of the program – you can write to NavGurukul at [email protected] or call on their helpline number 011-3959-5141. They are still admitting new students, and your referral can change the entire life of the student.

Get more details at: http://navgurukul.org/