Teach For India incubates nine entrepreneurs who are ensuring an excellent education for all children

Nine innovations from science experimentation to school leadership, out-of-school children to social-emotional learning are being incubated at InnovatED 2021

Kolkata – InnovatED, the nine-month incubator from Teach For India for supporting entrepreneurs looking to build impactful organizations has announced its Cohort for 2021. Teach For India’s Alumni early-stage education entrepreneurs looking to take their innovations from the promising impactful stage to a sustainable organizational stage. The incubator program provides a host of resources for the Alumni entrepreneurs –

Teach For India supports it’s alums to incubate ideas that will impact ed equity
Cohort of 9-10 entrepreneurs each year
From 2017-2019, Teach For India has incubated and helped launch 40 entrepreneurs
Teach For India supports the entrepreneurs with funding, dedicated coaches, innovation boot camps, a peer-led community of support, access to the larger ecosystem and knowledge frameworks on organisation-building.
InnovatED guides the entrepreneurs through the building blocks of organizational development and entrepreneurial self growth – Leadership and decision making, financial management, process orientation, relationship building, employee and customer centricity, problem-area expertise, communication and storytelling.

These 9 entrepreneurs span Teach For India’s 2012 to 2018 Fellowship cohorts, and are based in 14 urban and rural regions, representing ideas ranging from science experimentation to school leadership, from education in remote geographies for out-of-school children to social-emotional learning, and from building local leadership to higher-secondary education.

Over the last few years, InnovatED has supported 30+ early-stage education entrepreneurs working across ed-aspects like School transformation to 21st-century skills, Sports and Arts and Early-childhood education to Parent leadership. Fostering an interconnected community of educational entrepreneurs whose collective impact on India’s education landscape will eliminate in-equity in the long run, is one of our primary goals. Alongside, we also believe in nurturing a culture of innovation in our Fellows and Alumni and InnovatED aims to help accelerate these innovations“ – Payoshni Saraf, Director – Alumni Impact, Teach For India.

Bringing the Laboratory into the Classroom

Co-founded by Ashna Mehta, Catalyst is an initiative based in Hyderabad that aims to transform secondary Science education in high-need schools by fostering love and curiosity for science in students. By providing hands-on learning science kits with training and support for teachers, Catalyst envisions a classroom learning experience where students are able to conduct lab experiments and record their observations. A Teach For India Fellow (2018-2020) in Hyderabad, Ashna envisions fostering 21st-century scientific skills and building a student community that engages in scientific problem-solving.

Strong school leaders for better student outcomes

Co-founded by Manvi Arora, Alokit is based in Delhi and it enables K-12 educational leaders to develop their potential to transform the quality of education, and drive improved student outcomes in under-resourced communities. Alokit works with governments, nonprofits and other organizations to address the complex challenge of delivering high-quality education that can transform the lives of millions of children in India, all through the means of identifying and coaching effective school leaders. Manvi taught underprivileged children in New Delhi as a Teach For India Fellow (2013-2015)

Transforming Education in remote, far-flung hilly areas of India

India Foundation for Education Transformation (IEFT) is an initiative based in Arunachal Pradesh and co-founded by Prahlad Chakma, a Teach For India Fellow (2012-2015) in New Delhi. IEFT primarily addresses the severe learning crisis faced by students in the remote, far-flung hilly states of India. The organization operates by supporting schools in the remote hilly regions of North-East, directly coaching the students (IX-XII) in the form of after-school programs, and creating model schools focused on providing strong foundational literacy and numeracy.

Making Education a possibility for All

Learning Initiatives For India (LIFI), founded by Raman Bahl works with children who either have never gone to schools before or have been pushed out of schools for various reasons. Raman gained a deeper understanding of the ed-inequity as a Teach For India Fellow (2012-2014) in high-needs schools of Delhi. LIFI’s ‘Suno Aur Seekho’ flagship program is an academic initiative for helping the rural communities gain access to fun learning at home by leveraging voice as the medium. The organization is dedicated to building a sustainable ecosystem that puts the youth and the children of the community on a better life path and is currently operating in Haryana, UP and Bihar.

Social-Emotional Learning Programs for vulnerable children

Labhya Foundation is a Delhi based initiative that aims to enable children to cope with the ill effects of poverty & become lifelong learners. Co-founded by Richa Gupta, Labhya is the world’s largest and India’s first at-scale Socio-emotional learning program, thus enabling 2.5 million vulnerable children to become effective learners. Richa was a Teach For India Fellow (2017-2019) in Delhi before going on to start her own organization. Major interventions of the foundation include the Happiness Curriculum and Anandam Pathyacharya, both of which are daily Social-Emotional Learning classes, co-created and implemented at all government-run schools in Delhi and Uttarakhand respectively.

Addressing social marginalization and poverty with education and skill development

Voyage Educare Foundation – Raabta is co-founded by Rizvi Aquil Abbas and is working towards improving the outcomes for students, including levels of learning, achievement, and wellbeing. Based in Mumbai, VEF intends to transform underserved schools into lighthouse schools, with the ultimate goal of empowering key stakeholders to eliminate inequity for the children. Rizvi gained a deeper understanding of the ed-inequity as a Teach For India Fellow (2016-2018) in high-needs schools of Mumbai.

Reimagining education at the grassroots for School Transformation

Barefoot Edu Foundation – Lantern co-founded by Subhankar Paul works with leaders and teachers in a cluster of schools through a 3-year systemic approach focussing on 5 key areas: Leadership, Teaching, Community, Foundational Learning, and Co-curricular Development. Based in Mumbai, Lantern envisions creating a movement of empowered educators and organisations that will innovate and meaningfully make education better for children. Before starting Barefoot, Shubhankar was a Teach For India Fellow (2014-2017) in Mumbai.

Where Holistic Learning meets Fun

Claylab Education Foundation is co-founded by Vivek Kaushik and is based in Mumbai. The organization works towards providing affordable yet quality after-school support to students in the form of career counselling, academic support, skill-building, mentorship, and leadership opportunities. A Teach For India Fellow (2018-2020) in Mumbai, Vivek envisions a future where the youth have the right awareness and skills to contribute positively to society, and currently operates in high need schools of Mumbai, Pune and Delhi.

Reimagining access to Creativity and Innovation for all Children

Based in Chennai and founded by Dr Sowmya Lakshminarayanan, Lead by Design Foundation (LBD) envisions mobilizing a movement of young people that will build a sustainable and thriving future by unlocking their creative potential. Operating in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, LBD makes creative avenues accessible to all children through educational kits and designing spaces that allow experiential learning. Sowmya gained a deeper understanding of the ed-inequity as a Teach For India Fellow (2017-2019) in high-needs schools of Chennai.

The national incubator InnovatED was created with the long term vision of fostering an interconnected community of education entrepreneurs across India – who will learn from and support each other during and beyond the incubation journey, and create a new narrative for education in the country. Previously, the initiative has incubated educational organizations such as the Indian School of Democracy, The Better Design Foundation (TBDF), Shifting Orbits Foundation, Edzola, Simple Education Foundation, Slam Out Loud, Saturday Art Class, and many others.