Aditya Jhajharia, a science alumnus of St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, is the business head (East India) of Patiala-based Inizio Edutech. Founded in 2009 by Pritish K. Singh, Dhruv Kalia and Nakul Jain, Inizio Edutech provides new-age learning to students through educational tours and school-based courses. Over the past four years, it has established close links with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) USA, which offers education programmes in several centres across the US. These programmes (residential and non-residential) offer hands-on science and math learning opportunities and interaction with NASA’s top scientists and astronauts. In May 2013, Jhajharia sent a batch of 18 students from two Kolkata schools — South City International and DPS, Ruby Park — to NASA.
Newspeg. More recently, in association with the American Center, NASA and La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata, Inizio Edutech convened an ‘International Youth Science Forum for Humanity and Peace’ to celebrate World Science Day on November 10. This programme was a huge success and attracted partici-pation of Kolkata’s top-ranked schools (20 participants from each school). The Youth Science Forum also drew eminent scientists and academics including Khalid El Khabbaz, president of Inizio Edutech, Florida; William A. Oefelein, former astronaut, and Dr. Bikash Sinha, former director of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics.
“The objective of the Youth Science Forum is to encou-rage young learners to develop their STEM (science, techn-ology and maths) capabilities. The initiative was ably aided and supported by Dr. Al Globus from the Ames Res-earch Center, NASA and his team,” says Jhajharia who began his career in the manufacturing and exports business before signing up with Inizio Edutech in 2011.
Genesis. Inizio Edutech began its innings by taking its first batch of 24 class VIII-XII students of the Budha Dal Public School, Patiala, for education workshops in NASA installations in October 2009. Since then, 4,500 students from 50 schools including Pathways World School (Aravalli), Bal Bharati Public School (Delhi), Unison World School (Dehradun) and DPS (Kolkata) have benefited from this programme (price tag: Rs.2 lakh per student). Over the years, Inizio Edutech has signed up education tours with other institutions of international repute including national science centers, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology. On completing their study tours, students are given a participation certificate issued by NASA’s center in Orlando and Inizio Edutech.
Direct talk. “During the past three months, Inizio Edutech has expanded its footprint across eastern India. The NASA tour of students of South City International School and DPS, Ruby Park were big successes with students given the opportunity to participate in several hands-on learning activities at the Kennedy Space Center, seminars at MIT & Harvard, and a unique workshop conducted by professional Broadway actors,” says Jhajharia.
Future plans. Four years on, Inizio Edutech has consolidated its educat-ional tours and is acquiring a good reputation in India and abroad. “There is tremendous enthusiasm among secondary and higher secondary stud-ents for STEM learning. Unfortunately K-12 education in India still tends to be textbooks and classroom focused. Encouraged by the response, we are planning to add more affordable domestic educational tours to our repertoire, particularly for students in the Delhi NCR region,” says Jhajharia.
Wind in your sails!
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)