The availability of technology has not only eased our life but also have given us a plethora of opportunities to create an impact that lasts long and reaches a larger audience. This advantage has opened new possibilities in almost every domain. For-profit organizations have found new ways to increase business and the non-profits have discovered ways to create change at a faster pace. When we got to know about Shikshanjali and their vision to create a pan-India change in education domain we partnered with them to contribute to the cause through technology. Aiming to create larger impact with the benefit of technology.

Shikshanjali is an organization which is working in education domain to create sustainable changes through its education program. It has been set-up to bring together the government, corporate companies, and education-based non-profit organizations to effectively utilize available resources. Their vision is to uplift the quality of education in government schools across the country and bring them at par with public and private schools.

With over 60 million children who receive little or almost no education at all, India faces strong education challenges. According to statistics, India will need another 50 years to reach the goal of universal education. Seeing it this way the task at hand seems huge.

On the contrary, India has seen an increase in budgetary allocation over the years, we have an extensive network of government schools, a huge amount of funds and strong education goals. The only missing piece in this jigsaw is an effective usage of all the available resources, and this is where Shikshanjali comes into play.

But to convert a vision of this scale into reality, Shikshanjali needs to bring together government, corporates, NGOs and government/ NGO-supported schools and provide them a platform where each one can contribute to the goal of education.

Implementing a project of this scale without a digital platform is not feasible in these technology driven times. Different stakeholders continuously need to be updated about the progress and functioning of the project. The government, for instance, should be aware of the resources that the NGOs are using and the corporates should know where their CSR funds are being used. The NGOs need to track their progress in schools they are working with and in all shikshanjali needs a way to keep track of the bigger picture.

If done manually the same task would need the support of a large manpower. Even if this need is met ensuring that each stakeholder receives required information in due time with high level of transparency and efficiency is not a mean feat.

To solve this issue, Shikshanjali has partnered with ColoredCow to find a technology solution that can help in implementing this vision on a mega scale. ColoredCow’s flagship project ManageMyNGO (MMN) provides a platform to NGOs to perform all their non-core activities and in this case, is providing the same for Shikshanjali.

This platform provides a customized dashboard to its users with all the features they need to use on a regular basis. So Shikshanjli will get a customized space to add a school, NGO or corporate to the program, track progress, communicate with different stakeholders, etc. and simultaneously have a panoramic view of different entities. Similarly, other stakeholders get a customized dashboard with features related to their areas of working. A corporate will be able to see how their funds are being used, how much of it is invested and where, etc. on the other hand an NGO will be able to see the schools they have been assigned, their funds usage, on ground operations, etc.

The platform is being developed on laravel framework with a multi-layer authentication and authorization network. This layering module provides each user with the information pertaining to their area of execution. Segregating the ones that are not part of their operations, thereby ensuring data safety and also preventing information overloading.

To ensure that the platform serves its purpose on ground, it is being developed by continuous validation of requirements. Our team observes the platforms functioning in real time situations and improves features with faster feedback loops.

For instance, Shikshanjali needs to perform baselining survey before adding any school to the program. In stage one our team developed a demo feature after analyzing the requirements, in next stage the feature was validated on ground in one of Shikshanjali’s field visits to a school they were surveying for the program. As this was done in presence of our technical team a lot of important feedbacks were taken and incorporated in this stage itself. 

This back and forth validation with continuous analysis helps in understanding the different real-time scenarios in which the platform will be used. Making it better prepared for varied situations.

We have been using a similar approach in building Shikshanjali website. Continuous communication, understanding the vision and creating a platform that resonates with the core idea. These have been our fundamental pointers that assist in transforming a vision into reality.