Until We Meet Again.

My last day in India was the perfect synopsis of my time here – yoga to the dawn over Mumbai, a visit to the Nilanda Institute who educate Indian students with learning disabilities, an almost equal amount of time spent battling traffic to try and buy a few last minute gifts, and a walk around India at the park nearby.

The park is India – thousands of Muslims, Hindis, Parsis, Christians, all walking and playing and chatting in perfect harmony. I circle the 2 km walking path with the Indians and my emotions swirl and swim along with me…laughing with the boys trying to play a cricket match over crowded benches, envy for the two close friends walking together and missing mine, reverent to the frail woman walking with her care-taker, amazed at the number of joggers who are wearing saris, nostalgic for the proud Indian father who walks by with a “Michigan Dad” t-shirt, hopeful for the children who swarm me when I give away the last of my pencils, tearful for the small girl carrying a baby more than ½ her own size, anger at the boy who pushes the weaker brother, but mostly love for this country and everything it has shared with me.

On to Vietnam…

IIT's Bid to Improve Indian Education

We entered the gates and left behind India’s street noise, and actually, India. I could have been at Stanford.

“There are over 300 deer here, every professor and student lives on campus, it’s about creating an environment for learning,” Hari told me, the Vice President of Development for Congruent, one company who is helping us build the Curriki platform.

We were on our way to meet with Dr. Mangala Sunder Krishnan, the IIT Professor who has spear-headed the IIT open source movement. IIT is the exclusive engineering school where .74% (just under 3,000) of the 350,000 applicants are accepted each year. The rest of the applicants go to second tier engineering schools throughout the country, sometimes schools where the faculty has no direct experience and have been hired on the spot to meet the huge demand for computer degrees.

Mangala said there were two driving forces that brought open source IIT to his attention. The first (and the concern I have heard over and over) was the incredible challenge being faced by today’s famous Indian technology firms, the 300,000 engineering graduates they tried to hire each year were simply not qualified – only 10% were directly employable (see past blog on trust your teachers). They were taught the concepts through rote learning but could not apply nor create with their education. All companies have to invest 6 – 12 months of re-training for these graduates before they get any value out of them. And the challenge appears to be the faculty at the non-IIT universities; they just don’t know how to teach conceptual understanding and application (in addition the Board Exam that gets these students into the university only tests rote learning). So why not take IIT’s famous curriculum and give it to the thousands of engineering universities and faculty to at least give them a jump start in changing the way they teach?

The second driving force was watching the success of his colleagues at MIT – OCW is perhaps the most advanced open source curriculum offering available today. He could leverage the learnings of his MIT colleagues in motivating the hyper-competitive 7 IIT’s throughout India to collaborate and develop their shared curriculum for open source. After 3 years, he has 120 courses in engineering and 600 more planned for math and science over the next year.
Most of my conversations have included major concerns over the future of India due to the “dismal” universities and government education system for primary and higher ed. If you’re interested, perhaps the best read on this is from the Financial Times, the author forecasts a halt to the 7-8% Indian growth and an impending demographic disaster due to the poor infrastructure, healthcare and education system. Perhaps Mangala’s work at IIT will help soften this recession if the seers are correct.

To the Principal's Office.

“Who are you and what do you want,” was my greeting for my first Principal appointment with three of the top schools in Chennai, in fact, in India.

“Ummm..” I stammered, having flashbacks to my own time in the Principal’s office, “Bala set up our meeting, to discuss the Curriki opportunity at PSBB.” Our goal was to try and get these leading schools to load their curriculum so other schools could benefit from their IP.

“Ah yes, so sorry, it is mid year exams and as you can see we are very busy here.”

Which was an understatement. I felt like we were at an Indian market, after 22 people came through her office interrupting our conversation for her signature or her direction on a discipline problem, I stopped counting. I have never seen anything like it, ordered chaos. The Principal managed to give me some clear direction on her opinion of Curriki between her loudspeaker announcement over the microphone to her right and calls with parents on the telephone to her left. Her comments were echoed in my additional meetings that day. First, focus on 8th standard and down, this is where schools have the most flexibility as they don’t have to prepare students for the Board Exam (which decides the rest of the students life, and is the root cause for the criticism of Indian education not promoting application and creativity). All teachers in primary school develop their own activities and worksheets and this is what we should consider putting on Curriki. There must be a certificate of completion for all teachers (this whole certificate, diploma thing is big in India). There should be a contest where Scott McNealy comes and gives an award to the best curriculum developed by a school.

And all of this sounded very positive until I met with a contact of mine that evening who knows all of these principals.

“The Principal of PSBB? She doesn’t make any decisions, it’s the Dean who makes all of the decisions there. You know that computer next to her desk? She doesn’t even know how to turn it on. But I am sure she told you to follow up in a week, in India, we never say no. We just keep giving excuses as “no” is impolite.”

I reflected on my thousands of no’s to shop owners, rickshaw drivers, dinner offers, etc. over the last two months, I must be a very impolite American.

1,084 Documents

“Does that computer hold one thousand eighty-four documents?” asked the restaurant manager at my hotel, pointing at the laptop in front of me.
“Sir?”
“Does that computer hold one thousand eighty-four documents?” he repeated.
“Yes sir, this computer holds one thousand eighty-four documents, and I am sure hundreds of thousands more,” I tried to reply courteously.
“Oh! No, really? That computer holds one hundred thousand eighty four documents?!?”
“Yes sir, computers today can hold all of the documents you have ever created. But I do not understand, why is eighty-four so important?”
“Eighty-four is all of the business documents in the world!”
I spent a few moments trying to grasp if this was some Hindi Vedic astrology number, I finally realized what he was trying to say…

“Yes sir, this computer will hold all of your A4 documents, the standard paper size you use for managing your restaurant.”

“Can anyone steal your documents? Can you see the Internet? Ah, computers are an amazing thing. The happiest day of my life was a few years ago when I was at a small village near here and I saw Bill Gates, or some very important man who works for Bill Gates, give a computer to a poor village girl who won a computer contest. Computers will change India, open us up to the world. What do you think of India? We are having our first boom, we owe everything to computers. Can I sit down with you?”

I did a quick inventory of my desire for some alone time, his friendly face, his questionable sanity, our amusing conversation and figured, what the heck? And so we chatted about India, villages, new opportunities and the country’s future.

“India is very strong now, new opportunities all of the time. All of my children are educated. Do you think China will take us over? No? Yes, you are right, China will not take over India. India will take over China. We will win. If we can fix our villages we will win. You see, in America, people do not understand that life is still very, very bad in the Indian villages. So, in America, in small villages, people should get together for a village meeting and discuss India. They should say, oh, let’s help an Indian village. Let’s supply water and electricity and money for proper housing and education and teachers and schools and uniforms and telephones….please go back and tell America to do this for us. And can you send us computers to use? Computers are the answer.”

Ahem, check?

Exhale.

If you get a chance to come to India, try and make it to Kerala. Although fraught with tourists, thousands of ayurvedic centers, yoga shalas on every corner and street peddlers in between, it makes up for it with beautiful backwaters, delicious food, fresh air and incredible beaches. And it’s a communist state - making its population overall better educated and better off as a result.

I am staying near Lighthouse Beach which is all of the above condensed into a 200 meter beach. But, I’m on the other side of the lighthouse in a $15 room perched above the pounding surf (so loud I have to wear earplugs at night) with access to a secluded beach just out my door. I have a very difficult life right now – waking each morning to walk the labyrinth of walkways to find my yoga teacher - Lino Miele (a hilarious Italian ashtanga yoga teacher here giving a two month yoga retreat), a long brunch (usually at two different restaurants as I want to sample all the food), some writing and reading, lying on the beach, an afternoon massage, a sunset walk, fresh fish for dinner and back again to start it all over. Life is good, except for the lizard droppings left for me on my pillow last night by the lizard fairy…

Never Say Die.

If you’ve ever read Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat, you know there is one consistent rule in this very inconsistent place – desire. Every morning when I showed up 30 minutes early to prep for the NGO teachers, all of them were already present. Each evening when I said it was time to shut down and go home, I had to repeat myself four times – their favorite response to my urges to end the day was “Never Say Die.”

After days of teaching Curriki, Kid Pix, LeapFrog, blogging, Google documents and Teaching with the Internet – the teachers asked me for more. And it wasn’t just me, they asked each other for more – more resources, more learnings from their own teaching at NGOs, more focus if people were talking out of turn, more of themselves to share. They loved Curriki because the could access endless learning for their students, and more importantly, now it was their turn to share their own resources with the world – my favorite quote: “I spend hours finding worksheets and activities online and re-purposing them for my students, now I can showcase my own work.”

Most of these teachers are the first to be educated in their family, earn a higher-income than their peers, and are empowered by their NGOs to make change (which is much more common in an NGO than at a government school). And, as a result, they are making different choices. They want to move out of their parents house so they will stop bugging them about marriage, some bought their own car, others are putting themselves through University. All of them know that every piece of knowledge is a stepping stone to a better future.

Generosity Fuels the Momentum

The concept of hanging out in India for a few months and testing if a concept like Curriki can take hold seemed pretty implausible, especially given the diversity of the Indian education system (private schools, government schools, private government schools, NGO schools, International schools and the list goes on...I could stay here until I am 100 and continue learning about the nuances of this system). Fortunately, its not as far-fetched as it seems.

The generosity of our contacts makes this endeavor entirely possible. We meet with our contacts (business associates, friends of friends, founder’s contacts, Board of Director contacts, etc.), they provide us excellent feedback, sometimes consider piloting Curriki, but always gave three or four names to follow up with. And not just after the fact. They pick up their cell phone in the middle of our conversation and ask their own contacts when they could meet with us. My favorite example was meeting with a good friends father who was an Indian Ambassador. Over lunch in Mumbai discussing the Curriki concept, he scheduled a post-lunch meeting for me with a superb contact and tried to confirm a morning meeting for my Executive Director in Delhi. Why don’t Indian trains work this way?

In a way, our experience mirrors the approach of Open Source Curriculum. We introduce the concept to our own community, they take ownership and reach out to their communities, during our conversations their communities adapt and localize the concept to their own needs – be it NGO, private wealthy school, etc. – and the momentum begins.

The Elephant in the Room.

I read today in Hindustan Times a summary of a recent report by the UN – “The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet’s wealth…the bottom 50% of the world’s adult population owns barely 1% of the wealth. North America, Europe and the high income Asia-Pacific countries hold 90% of the total world wealth. In the US, average wealth (total assets – liabilities) is $144,000 per adult while in India it is $1,400 per adult.” Yes, that’s 1% of the US wealth.

Each morning in Delhi I throw on my jeans, tennis shoes and winter coat and battle traffic for 20km (12 miles) to arrive at the Hope School two hours later. My driver won’t take me all of the way there because he thinks “the people are too dirty and smelly and too many mosquitoes,” the truth is that they are predominantly Muslim and he is Nepalese. I finish my day with the Room to Read teachers, find my driver and battle evening traffic through Delhi, past the foreign embassies to the Taj Palace where I throw on some lip gloss and meet my colleagues and potential partners in the Club Room on the 7th floor to compare notes on our meetings with Indian officials and teaching in the slums.

My flip-flops from the 1% of the population to the 1% of the wealth are totally exhausting me. My brain can rationalize the statistics – however irrational they are. My heart can feel the love and laughter and beauty in both sides and everything in between. My mind can understand how we got here – how everyone who has more fights for more either through addiction to the game or fear of losing, or simply through the law of those who have more, get more. But every single part of me repulses at how completely, totally fucked up it is.

My Independence.

A few weeks ago I was having lunch with a group of businessmen in Bangalore. Everyone at the table had lived in the states and were now back in India and the question came around to what we all miss most about America. The responses varied from more time on their hands, open space, less obvious air and noise pollution and then the question came to me. Only one thing (besides my boyfriend, family and friends), my independence.

With the exception of the yoga area in Mysore and the cosmopolitan areas in Bangalore and Mumbai, I won’t walk out the door without my arms and legs covered – and in Delhi I won’t leave the door unless I have a male companion, especially after dark. I could, but that only increases the presence of the Indian men and their camera ready cell phones and incessant badgering (many people ask if I feel unsafe in India and the answer is absolutely not, I just feel harassed). In my fancy hotel in Bangalore, I was greeted with a hand-written note from the manager welcoming me as a “single, female traveler” stating that they would screen my phone calls and offer me a personal escort (not the kind men hire!) if I desired. I usually walk as most Indian women do - my head lowered, never meeting anyone’s eyes, sweating under my wrap. It’s actually not a big deal.

Nothing compared to the lives of most Indian women (of course the elite women are exceptions) – married by fourteen, lucky to get four years of primary education, repressed or murdered by their husbands and in-laws (I just read there are 70 women set afire in Bangalore each month), the list goes on…and I can’t write more as it depresses me too much.

I love my country. Despite my embarrassment at the colossal mistakes my country has made (I usually claim to be Californian as opposed to American – hoping that this softens the perception), especially in the last six years, I am eternally grateful to be born American. I can dream and am empowered to fulfill my dreams, there is no greater gift. Thanks again to those American women before me who demanded more.

Some Hope from Hope School.

Last year I took a vacation to train twenty Room to Read affiliated teachers in Delhi – all incredible teachers with a passion for education and helping out those most in need, as they once were. These teachers work for various NGO’s in the Delhi slums (where 1/3 of the population lives) and Room to Read supplies them with libraries, computer labs, professional development, etc. It’s an excellent model - the NGOs have the relationships in the community while Room to Read, headquartered in San Francisco, has built relationships with various local publishers and lots of rich people back in the states (their Executive Director, John Wood, is a brilliant fund-raiser and his recently published book is a good read – Leaving Microsoft to Change the World).

We all know that volunteering can be hit or miss for both parties – do our skills map to the organizations needs? Are we giving anything of value? Is the value we provide sustainable? Surprisingly, after just 3 days of training these teachers and 3 more days of visiting their various NGOs, my answer was a resounding yes. And its not because of me, its because of these teachers and their exponential multiplier effect. Their hunger for knowledge, desire to make an impact on their thousands of students, lack of resources (which motivates them to squeeze every last drop of value out of their teaching tools) and “just make it happen” focus creates change.

This year we held our training at the Hope School. Hope School was founded 27 years ago to provide education to those girls who were not permitted to go to school for various reasons – (1) they needed to beg, (2) they needed to work, (3) they needed to raise their siblings, or (4) their parents didn’t believe girls should be educated. So Hope School provides a unique curriculum around their working hours, a day care for their younger siblings, and social workers who regularly (at least once a month according to the Executive Director) visit parents to educate them on the value of education and make sure their children stay in school.

I was greeted during my first day of training this year with a presentation from last year’s teachers on how their skills impacted students throughout the year. One of my favorite stories was from a primary teacher, Nishent, at the Hope School who used Kid Pix with street children who were not allowed to enroll at Hope (their parents, if they had any, would still not allow them to attend school). She introduced computers to the children by using Kid Pix software, apparently the students returned day after day to play for hours with Kid Pix. One year later, eight of the street children are now enrolled full-time at Hope School – after the parents saw their work on the computers they enrolled them hoping this was a chance for better opportunity.

Each morning on the way to training, the Hope School story gives me my own hope as I walk with my entourage of uneducated street children. My free pens and rupees can’t change their lives, but the teachers I work with can and do.

My Guardians

Every time I arrive at a new location, I “date” various drivers. We chat about India, education, their families, America, shopping, pollution, etc. and after a day or two I commit to one driver – usually based on their response to my word “no thank you” (if they push after 3 no thank yous, it’s a deal breaker), the connection we have in our conversations, and their ability to keep me alive in the dangerous pursuit of driving in India.

These guardians claim to be my body-guards, my tour guides, my drivers, my bag carriers and ultimately, they become my friends. They are passionate about their rickshaws, often personally painted and adorned with photos or posters on their beliefs. They complain about India’s crowding, pollution and the disparity between the haves and themselves. They prize India’s newfound opportunities and give most of their income to their children’s education – hoping they will be the first generation to complete school. And they always wait for me – through hours of meetings or dinners or shopping, every time I walk out the door, they are there.

My favorite driver was Apu in Msyore. Apu has 2 little boys, a beautiful wife and a huge heart. His vitality and curiosity rivals most five year olds - just being around him makes you feel a little lighter. Above is a photo of him reaching across to play with a little girl next to us – despite the green light ahead and hundreds of horns honking behind.

Trust Your Teachers.

I was itching to get back to India, and reminded of this when I arrived for my flight at Suvarnabhumi and discovered complications – something about Air India not properly booking my flight on Thai Airways. My 30 minutes with Thai Airways left me with the answer – “Good luck, I can’t help you...” repeated eleven times to my various questions. I arrived at Air India desperate as I had a 9 am meeting in Bangalore the next day. After 5 minutes with the manager at Air India I had the flight I needed as well as some avuncular advice – “When there is a roadblock, we learn to go around, fly above or dig under. In India and in life, there should be no roadblocks.” I walked away with my ticket and yet another affirmation that I love this country.

I returned to full days in Bangalore pitching Curriki to various corporate leaders, foundations and schools with the Curriki Executive Director, Bobbi Kurshan, and another volunteer, Barbara Bauer (an executive for Sun who recently has taken a career break as well). I’ve been fortunate to work with some brilliant people in my career, and these women were no exception. Both are passionate, creative, innovative and the list goes on – but more than anything they have perfected the art of balancing “heart” with “bottom-line.” And the caliber of our meetings proved this as they were all set up based on their relationships – the Azim Premji Foundation (unfortunately Azim Premji was out of town on business and couldn’t meet with us), MindTree, Microsoft Education, etc.

Perhaps the most memorable afternoon was at MindTree, a company that specializes in technology innovation 3 years ahead of where the market is – if you are using Blue Tooth technology you are using their innovation. Encouraging creativity is the essence of their culture. They have adopted a school for spastic children and held a contest among the children to develop their logo. As you walk through the halls, the children’s art is blown up as murals (see above). They have set up their offices to mirror Indian villages – teams sit in pods of seven (the average size of an Indian household with grandparents, etc.), families make up neighborhoods and eventually a floor is a village with its very own replicated tree at the center where they hold village meetings. Everyone we met with had lived in the US at one point and all of them chose to return to be part of this culture, and, I assume, part of the IPO which is schedule for Q1 07.

MindTree is run by Ashok Soota who sets a high-standard for his 4,000 employees where learning is a vital part of their competitive advantage to innovate. Mr. Soota’s major challenge is hiring talented employees – intelligence isn’t the problem (Indians out-test most in education). The challenge is developing creativity and application skills, something that isn’t embraced in the Indian education system. Often corporations are forced to send new employees to “finishing” schools to learn these skills.

We heard this sentiment echoed during our meetings with executives at Wipro – who sponsored a ground-breaking study on this challenge just a week ago. The study is unique in that it focuses on the “top” private schools and discovers the same challenge often associated with only the government schools – teaching emphasizes rote learning as opposed to true understanding and application.

No one disagreed with this challenge in Indian education. But we did find two disparate parties on Curriki as an approach to solving this challenge. Curriki, by its very essence, embraces three philosophies (1) trust your teachers, (2) believe they are capable of modifying and improving the curriculum and (3) the more open the platform, the more valuable it will become.

The first camp, usually the technology leaders, live these philosophies with their own employees and were enthused about Curriki’s potential – empower teachers to create and you will foster creativity and application skills in the students. And usually these people had first hand experience with the power of collaboration, communities, wikipedia, etc. and their success.

The second party just couldn’t get past the vision of Indian teachers modifying curriculum – less than ½ of India’s teachers have a university education, how can they be trusted to change curriculum. I wanted to ask a larger question – how can you trust them to teach your future if you don’t invest in their creativity? Especially when your country embodies the philosophy of "go around, fly above or dig under."