BENGALURU: Ten Bengaluru-based teenagers have been working on increasing awareness and access to technology for students from underprivileged backgrounds. Rickety Robots Roboshala (RRR), an initiative started by 10 students from The International School Bangalore, has been working towards spreading awareness on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) to underprivileged students to help open up more opportunities for their future.
The goal of the students is to ensure that no one is left behind as Bengaluru and the world progress towards a more tech-based future. “We cater to students from underprivileged backgrounds like drivers, maids, and daily-wage workers. We believe that social welfare should impact your community before the world,” one of the students said.
The 10 students, namely Aarit, Samaira, Arav, Nishka, Keyush, Odati, Rayan, Avani, Mahir and Arjun, have conducted several workshops and training programmes in orphanages and government schools across the city.
“Technology is the future, so without spreading it to all, we cannot progress. One of our primary objectives is to raise children’s awareness of technology. We can use this to take Bengaluru to the next level,”
another of the students said.
Foremost, the students, aged between 12 and 14, as part of RRR, have visited government schools where they taught children coding through the use of Scratch, a programming language aimed at teaching children how to programme. They also adopted the Ramagondanahalli Government School in Whitefield.
As part of their efforts to ensure that children from underprivileged backgrounds can access technology, they are also currently working on setting up computer and robotics labs in the schools.
They helped build a maker lab, a space for children and adults to create and invent things, in Aarti Homes, an orphanage in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, they also have the long-term goal of ensuring that every school has access to a computer lab and an entry-level fully functional robotics lab.