Halfway through a project to build an app for senior citizens as a personal project, Aryan Nangia, a student at Pathways School, Gurgaon, faced a roadblock. He realised that there was no easy way to get answers to real world problems such as – how to position his product, how to build a human-led design, how to enrol customers and how to make it economically viable. The content available online was not built for teenagers; it was either too basic or too complex. Further, he realised the importance of young people upskilling themselves in the age of AI, especially when faced with an uncertain and rapidly evolving job market.

Cut to a year later: Aryan founded LaunchPad as a club in his school, along with a small cohort of 12 very excited, ambitious middle schoolers. The club was formulated with one thought in mind: the biggest skill in the 21st century is the ability to constantly learn and upskill.

Aryan started by identifying 5 “future-proof” skills – AI foundation, business fundamentals, design thinking, financial literacy, and communication/storytelling . Students came together in sessions twice every month to not just ‘learn’ content surrounding the skill but participate in meaningful discussions that ranged from AI ethics in the artificial intelligence module, to the use of various marketing strategies they noticed in their daily lives. Expert interviews added another dimension to the students’ learning, offering solutions and answers to questions like “How will AI impact the future of jobs?” and “What are the things you look for when evaluating start-ups?” from those who can answer them best.

When asked about the platform, Aryan explained, “This isn’t a traditional edtech platform. We’re not selling a course or a dream of topping an exam. We are a community of ambitious learners from across the world who want to build something to create a positive impact.” The community is completely free for students to join online, and the forum’s features allow students to share thoughts and receive mentorship from those with experience in the field that they are building. LaunchPad is for the students, by the students and for the students.

With positive results and feedback from all participants, Aryan has now set his sight on expanding. He has students at various schools in India and internationally to launch chapters in their respective schools, spanning 12 cities in 5 countries. “We strongly believe that high-quality education shouldn’t have any barriers, especially financial”, says Aryan. With this value in mind, LaunchPad has been experimenting with the implementation of a few of its modules in NGOs within Delhi NCR, impacting 75+ underprivileged students so far.

However to achieve true scale, one must go digital. With help from friends, Aryan was able to launch an online platform to facilitate students’ learning and networking, even those not attending chapter schools. With 100+ active learners and counting, Aryan remains optimistic about growing this community of ambitious, hardworking students, building together to positively impact local communities because, according to him, “at the end of the day, it all adds up.”

Author: Sonali Kamble