Inaugural of the Chudar Community Learning Program supported by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Chennai: The Inaugural of the Chudar Community Learning Program supported by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS took place on National Science Day (Friday, 28th February 2020) atKabali Thottam, Mylapore. As part of the program, there will be an 8-week course on robotics for underprivileged children from the community. The event began at 5.30 pm with a demonstration of some simple robotic operations by Mr.Mani from Chennai Robos, using a specially designed kit for the purpose. The kits were distributed to the children by Mr.S.R Rajan and Ms.Nageshwari from Oxford University Press, Chennai in the presence of Dr. A. Ravishankar (CEO, Chudar) and Ms. Hemamalini (Director, Chudar Operations) and parents from the community.

At the end of this 8 week module, children will get hands-on exposure to building robotic parts, and use the knowledge to build devices to identify gas leaks and a sensor-activated bin. The children will also receive certificates on successful completion of the course.

Chudar was started by Dr.A.Ravishankar, a former faculty at IIT Madras, as an initiative to improve quality of education for underprivileged children. We currently run 10 after-school learning centres in slum areas across Chennai, and work with 45 government schools to bring about measurable improvement in English, Maths and Science skills for 5000 children. Based on the impact made in the last one year, Oxford University Press has expanded support to Chudar’s Community Learning Program to spread the excitement of science and technology among students, to benefit 1000 students over the next year.