What started as curiosity has now become a driving force for Aashik Rahman, fondly called Robo Aashik. As a kid, he was drawn towards creating electrical fixtures for his bicycle, and machines and their magic. Passionate about developing robots, building aircrafts and drones, Aashik actively participated in all national and international competitions while in college. This passion took a serious turn when he got a chance to work in DRDO under eminent scientists.
Aashik and his friend partnered to integrate their curriculum into STEM education and supporting the children. While one was adept at technology, the other proficient in teaching. Aashik, the CEO of Propeller, says he wanted to be a support system for children who “have a dream of building their own innovative projects.” They came up with a curriculum that made technology and innovation sound simple. Ultimately, he wanted to “democratise robotics learning.”
Subjects like robotics are considered “affordable only to students from metropolitan cities, especially for schools that follow the ICSE & CBSE boards,” he says. Having studied in a government school, in Tamil medium, he wanted to make robotics accessible to kids from rural India. Today, many schools have welcomed his model and have accommodated the new modules in their already existing curriculum. He says there are robotic labs in many schools. With 137 staff members, currently, Propeller functions in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, and the curriculum, Aashik says, has branched out to 497 schools.
He says, listening to each kid’s dream and their innovative ideas amazes him. “I have built a strong ecosystem where each student can achieve their dream,” he says. There are different modules for each grade that mainly focuses on real-life problems. While some focus on agriculture, others discuss topics like the concerns of the fishermen community, salt water, etc, he explains. One of the biggest innovations, he recalls, was a “breakthrough”. With the help of his team and his students, they made a robot during the Covid-19 pandemic that could supply food and medicines to the patients in the government hospitals.
They have also created a community called the Young Scientist Community that works with identifying the problems in their surroundings, and developing solutions. The education extends to college students too. He says, “ We have created a training programme for visually impaired students. With a base that he has been creating for 12 years, he has made robotics accessible to 3,24,000 students. He aims to extend this learning to 10 lakh students, and says that he would continue to challenge the notion that subjects like robotics, AI, and coding are restricted to students in metropolitan cities.