Lenovo and Agastya Foundation supports underprivileged students education

Lenovo has cemented corporate social- responsibility (CSR) with Agastya International Foundation that has impacted over 6000+ underprivileged students with their mobile science education outreach programs in India. These Lenovo supported education programs run in Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Delhi providing hands-on education to the underserved students and teachers has garnered a total of and 94,413 exposures to date. By making experiential science education accessible to rural government schools, Lenovo along with Agastya Foundation is set to impart STEM education from resource-constrained communities.

Mobile Education Programs in India supported by Lenovo:

Lenovo supports Agastya Foundation’s Science laboratory in Bangalore to reach out to more underprivileged students. The program caters to 1500 children annually generating 15000 student exposures and 100 teacher exposures in a year. An exposure, simply put, is a measure of Agastya’s reach. It is the number of times Agastya has face-to-face interactions with an individual (child / teacher /community member) and each exposure is 2-3 hours in duration.

Lenovo also supports 3 I Mobile Labs. The iMobile labs are small vehicles that are set up to carry laptops and have Lab on Tab a unique multi-sensory learning method containing digitized content for 6th-9th grades. In this program, local community youth are trained to be teachers on the iMobile Vans, thus creating an economic opportunity within the community. The program caters to 1300 students annually and 3900 unique children in total generating 39000 student exposures and 450 teacher exposures annually. These iMobile vans are functional in Bangalore, Mumbai, and Gurgaon.

The multisensory learning methods used in Lab on Tab (LoT) ensure that all types of learners benefit from the tool. Lenovo supports 3 units of the LoT program in Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Gurugram reaching out to a total of 3000 children annually generating 24,000 student exposures annually. The overall impact of these programs is 15 Million Students and 250,000 Teachers in India.

One of the top highlights of these programs includes the new learning pedagogy of Explore, Play and Learn sessions promoting self-learning, questioning capabilities, and self-exploring capacities of students using the digital content.

“Smarter Technology for All forms the fabric of Lenovo’s social outlook as well as our business. With this vision, we at Lenovo are committed to empowering educational institutions by delivering innovative education solutions and providing best-in-class devices that are accessible to all. In a remote learning setting, Lenovo also understands the need for such solutions and with our partnership with Agastya Foundation, we ensure that there is continued support and learning for underprivileged kids. With Agastya’s flexible and far-reaching digital programs that maintain the connection between teachers and students, it is safe to say that blended learning is becoming the new norm in India”, stated Rahul Agarwal, CEO & Managing Director, Lenovo India.

During COVID-19, Lenovo employees supported Agastya by organizing a fundraising initiative called ‘Ultrathon-75’, where they distributed the tablets to government school students belonging to grades 6th to 10th from disadvantaged backgrounds.

"Agastya is very happy to partner with Lenovo India, who is a global technology leader, to help us leverage technology to create more blended learning opportunities for beneficiaries based on Agastya's Explore, Play, Learn modules and future virtual classrooms to take education to the next level of experiential learning. This is in line with the transformative Agastya 2.0 / VISION 2025 initiative to leverage technology to create a world class Child Research and Innovation and Teacher Innovation Center for building curiosity, creativity, confidence and caring among underserved and underprivileged children and government schoolteachers"- stated Mr. Ramji Raghavan – Chairman, Agastya International Foundation.