When a smart ‘Young Tinker’ comes to the IIC

Civil Society News, New Delhi

WHEN Anil Pradhan earned a degree in civil engineering in Bhopal you could say he had safely transitioned to a life that might never have been his without a college education.

He was born in a family of modest means in underserved rural Odisha. His village, Baral, is actually an island in 42 Mouza. Little happens there.

Pradhan’s father being in a Central police force, the family managed to relocate — escape, as it were, from the island and the captivity of its backwardness. Having graduated as an engineer, many opportunities presented themselves. He could well and truly dream big and put a yet greater distance between his new life and the past. Yet it is not the way he played the hand that had been dealt him.

Pradhan did dream big, but he did so in his own style. He turned down well-paying job offers and instead returned to his village with the lofty mission of helping schoolchildren take to maths and science and discover technology. He was looking to create a STEM revolution at the grassroots.

In 2017 he set up the Young Tinker Foundation which he runs with Vaishali Sharma as co-founder. It is an initiative based on the simple idea that children who tinker and make things with their hands lose their fear of learning especially with regard to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

Pradhan reasons that if India is to grow and develop, people in villages should have better education in the sciences and this can come through doing things as opposed to learning by rote. In a short time, he has reached thousands of schoolchildren and is going beyond Odisha as well.

Rohini Nayyar worked for rural development

For this unique initiative, the Tinker Foundation was chosen for the third Rohini Nayyar Prize for rural innovations which is given by the Nayyar Family Foundation for Social and Economic Purpose. It goes only to young people under 40. Pradhan is all of 28.

On the evening of November 6, Pradhan, accompanied by Sharma, received the award at a ceremony at the India International Centre (IIC). Presiding was Dr R.A. Mashelkar, who has celebrity status in the tech space.

The Young Tinker Foundation has been recognized before, most notably by NASA. But for Pradhan and Sharma to be feted at the IIC has its own significance. In so many ways the IIC is at the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi. Bureaucrats, politicians, journalists, lobbyists, academicians and policy wonks converge here. They don’t all score well when it comes to being mindful of the realities in the peripheries of India such as the backwaters of Odisha where the Young Tinker idea so brilliantly took shape.

But then that is the purpose behind the Rohini Nayyar Prize. Many years after she passed, the Nayyar Foundation was set up by her husband, Deepak Nayyar, the well-known economist, and her sons, Dhiraj and Gaurav, both economists in their own right with public roles to their credit.

Rohini was herself an economist of high standing with several academic achievements and important research. But it was to rural change, going beyond academic pursuits, that she was devoted. To this extent her world vision was her own and even perhaps somewhat different from the rest of her family.

When a loved one passes on how can a family keep their memory alive? Families instal park benches, open libraries, offer scholarships, support patients, build places of worship.

A prize for rural innovation was the perfect way to remember Rohini because of her lifelong dedication to addressing rural change.

Rohini Nayyar worked through government and had her say at its highest levels. She belonged to the rarefied circles of Delhi, but it was in the villages that she was interested.

Having initially been in the IAS for five years, she moved on to pursue a doctorate and later served for two decades in the Planning Commission.

She played an important role in the framing of the first India Human Development Report. State Human Development Reports followed. She was involved in establishing the systems for integrated rural development through the panchayats. Her understanding of rural wages and employment led to the conception and design of the landmark national rural employment programme.

 “She didn’t talk about her work. Not much even within the family,” recalls Deepak. It is fitting that she is now remembered through a prize given to low-key action-oriented people taking up rural challenges.

The Nayyar Family Foundation for Social and Economic Purpose was created two years ago. The prize of `10 lakh each year goes to an original project which has an impact on rural life. Many applications come in and, since the cut-off age is 40, it is heartening that there are  young people pursuing rural solutions.

The prize has an active jury consisting of Rajesh Tandon, Ashok Khosla, Renana Jhabvala and K. Seeta Prabhu. They are each well known for their social and academic involvements.

Whose idea was the foundation and the prize? It came about while talking with friends like Khosla and Tandon. Finally, it was a family decision most likely driven by Deepak. The foundation is a Section 8 company. A corpus of Rs 2 crore created by Deepak generates the Rs 10 lakh and other expenses annually. “Of course, I had to ask Dhiraj and Gaurav because it is their legacy,” he says.

Setting up a foundation comes with its complexities. There are legal decisions to be taken, paperwork is involved. When it comes to giving a prize there is selection of candidates, convening of the jury, holding an event and more that doesn’t happen easily. Remembering a loved one is wonderful, especially when it makes the kind of difference that the Rohini Prize does, but for all the heart that one puts into it, serious work it is too.