Nurturing the next generation through entrepreneurial mindsets and 21st century skills so that they can take control of their own destinies and create their own futures, Udhyam Shiksha is the education arm of Udhyam Learning Foundation.
At Shiksha, we partner with government schools and ITI systems to foster entrepreneurial mindsets and enable entrepreneurship among India's youth.
Our approach to achieve Udhyam's mission of #MakingBharatEntrepreneurial is by harnessing the innate entrepreneurial potential of India's youth through a scientifically designed curriculum. The curriculum is experiential in nature and built around the learning principles of enabling student autonomy, learning by doing, and leveraging real world experiences as means of effective learning.
PROGRAMS
+ ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET CURRICULA
Encourages students to pick personally meaningful projects focused on their problems and interests.
Has a strong focus on working in groups.
Has tools for students to evaluate their own growth.
Integrates principles of gamification.
One of the core objectives in designing curriculum at Udhyam is to enable entrepreneurial action in learners
The school curriculum (Grades 9 and 10) encourages students to experience entrepreneurial mindsets and skills with 25-30 hours of hands-on learning in class and 5-8 hours of real world action outside the classroom. The ITI curriculum on the other hand is designed as a primer program that leads to the selection of potential entrepreneurs for incubation. Here, the curriculum places greater emphasis on Real world business projects.
+ REAL WORLD BUSINESS PROJECTS
The Udhyam Shiksha Business Innovation Challenge is a unique real-world experiential program designed to offer students the experience of going through the entrepreneurial journey from scratch while still in school (Grade 11). This immersive and intensive experience is made real with the support of nominal seed money of Rs.2,000 per student, which students pool with their teams. Students learn how to identify and pursue opportunities, collaborate with their team members, and take risks with confidence. This powerful experience has seen a transformational impact on student mindsets.
+ INCUBATION
Our program in Haryana’s ITIs, called Udhyami Haryana, aims to help students build their entrepreneurial venture from scratch and to become sustainable entrepreneurs with support from incubation labs. We are currently productizing our incubation program and hope to scale it and take it to many more entrepreneurial young Indians.
CURRICULUM
At Udhyam, the curriculum team is focused on the three core goals of contextualization, improvement, and innovation. As the organization scales, it is important that we have a standardized curriculum that can be delivered quickly to new states. At the same time, it is equally important to improve continuously based on data in partnership with M&E and the testing team to ensure learning outcomes as well as a rich learning experience for our user and integrate new research backed approaches in our curriculum to address the emergent learning needs of users.
Curriculum ensures that the key design principles of real world and experiential learning that Udhyam envisions for every student are embedded in the learning journey and that there is adequate support to both students and teachers to adapt to these ways of learning.
Our curriculum team is a mix of people with complementary skills with passion for design, understanding users, trying new ideas, and learning continuously.
OUR WORK IS OPEN SOURCE
At Udhyam, we believe in the spirit of growing through collaborations. Our curriculum is open to anyone interested to use and improve on it while collaborating with us. We will be closer to reaching our goal of making India more entrepreneurial when we work together.
Drop your name and email here, we will get back to you with the open source curriculum
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
With the growing scale and depth of Udhyam Shiksha's footprint, it becomes imperative to know if our programs are implemented in a manner that is efficient and effective while at the same time meeting our targeted objectives and resulting in the intended impact. Thus robust Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) serves as the mirror to our performance on the ground. Leveraging technology, M&E enables real time data tracking, insights, and action for continuous improvements to what we offer (the curriculum), how we offer (operations), and overall program design and strategy.
Shiksha's M&E spans across the entire project life cycle, starting from training assessments, monitoring performance during the implementation phase, and end of program evaluations for tracking outcomes and impact. In parallel, our M&E team is constantly updating its knowledge and research with an eye to developing more contextual and nuanced methodologies for measuring outcomes and impact.
Udhyam's M&E team comprises qualified, committed, and passionate professionals who love data and leveraging data for action.
CHAMPIONS OF UDHYAM
Shri Digamber A. Dalvi | Hon. Director, DVET, Government of Maharashtra
Through the Udhyam Shiksha Program, we hoped that while our students would compete for regular job opportunities with lakhs of other job-seekers, they would also develop entrepreneurship potential and more importantly develop an overall entrepreneurial mindset that propels them towards success. The impact of this program was overwhelmingly positive. Female students especially, who used to be shy in expressing themselves, now do so eloquently and boldly like a politician. I feel the students’ experience of undergoing the program will certainly help them become more confident, resilient, and entrepreneurial in the future.
Krishna Rathore | Grade 12 Business Blasters Student, Delhi Founder, YuDecor Candles
I'm not sure I have a single role model... even if there is someone, I can't identify them. But I'm really inspired by sustainability. Our product is made of recycled material. I'm really scared of climate change and global warming. As a Gen-Z, I want to contribute something to society, to give back to the environment and community that I belong to.
Abhijit Uppal | Student GSSS Dakha, Ludhiana, Punjab
Even with the challenges that come along with cerebral palsy, Abhijit has been able to come up with an interesting and useful idea to work on for the Business Blasters program. He uses waste materials to create new products like paper bags, envelopes, flower pots, and even a lamp. The idea is eco-friendly and socially responsible, and Abhijit is an inspiration to young people everywhere.
Mr. Vasudevan | Inspector of Training Calicut Region (Former Principal Calicut ITI), Kerala
I am thrilled with the positive impact of the EMP and Udhyam Learning Foundation on our ITI students in Calicut. The program has instilled a sense of entrepreneurial spirit and confidence in them. With Udhyam’s support, our students are ready to embark on their own business ventures
LEADERSHIP
SHYAM SURYANARAYANAN
Lead, Udhyam Shiksha
Shyam leads the Shiksha program at Udhyam. He believes in the power of education to liberate student potential in an empathetic and compassionate manner. At Udhyam he is motivated by the possibility of enabling this human transformation at scale.
-
Harish Manwani
Director, Shiksha Operations
-
Payal Agrawal
Director, Curriculum
-
Ramesh Krishnamoorthy
Director, Technology
-
Priya Chandrasekar
Director, M&E
