Location

Lower Level, MIT Media Lab

Description

Agastya is a movement led by entrepreneurs, educators, scientists, teachers and children to revitalize and transform education for disadvantaged children and teachers in India. Through a scalable and interactive education model, Agastya and its partners--government, corporate and social investors--aim to catalyze social development, innovation and leadership. Agastya runs one of the largest hands-on science education programs in the world.
Agastya is the brainchild of a diverse group of individuals, led by Ramji Raghavan, a former non-resident Indian banker. Raghavan came back to India with a vision of providing creative, hands-on education to poor children and teachers--education that would be the opposite of conventional techniques that emphasize theoretical, rote-based learning. Raghavan was interested in starting a rural education center that would offer creative, alternative education to students. In conjunction with educationists, scientists, and institutional leaders, Raghavan felt that the emphasis needed to be on hands-on science in order to spark curiosity and engage children in creative thinking and questioning. Agastya networked with eminent scientists, developing a new pedagogy and hands-on models that could describe basic scientific concepts.