Mumbai, ISSUE DATE: Apr 10, 2023 : Music, laughter and a celebration of the most inspiring, funny and positive influencers—that’s how the India Today Group and RPG Group brought down the curtains on their second season of the Happiness Quest campaign with the Happiness Fest and Awards at a gala evening in Mumbai on March 25.

It was in 2022 when the two came together to launch the Happiness Quest, a much-needed initiative after the Covid-19 pandemic had left people reeling from anxiety and grief. Under such trying circumstances, it seemed the best time for seeking answers to what truly makes one happy. In the face of adversity, how does one rise and find new meaning in life, to maintain equanimity and remain cheerful?

16 March, 2023: On the occasion of International Pi (π) Day, Smile Foundation and Shell launched ‘NXplorers Junior’ program in three Indian states. NXplorers is Shell’s global flagship Social Investment STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) educational program that aims to benefit over 25,000 children during the first year by enabling them to understand, navigate and address local and global challenges, as underlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). NXplorers is also aligned with the National Education Policy 2020 and delivers societal benefits.

The innovative initiative will benefit less-privileged students from government schools and affordable private schools, studying in rural and hard-to-reach areas in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala. Its design also includes endeavour to create awareness amongst parents on the importance of STEM education, especially for girl children.

“Shell firmly believes that, provided with the necessary skills and guidance, young people can be a driving force to find sustainable solutions to the major global challenges of our time. Launched in 2018, Shell’s global flagship STEM program NXplorers is aligned with the National Education Policy 2020 that aims to transform India into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society. With the Smile Foundation partnership, we aim to expand this program to Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Telangana and offer young minds the platform to design sustainable solutions to ease the pressure on food, water, and energy,” said Ms. Latika Taneja, Head of Corporate Relations – India.

The program is being rolled out in concurrence with the educational authorities of the respective state governments. Besides students, teachers, parents, and communities are involved actively while implementing the program so that it remains sustainable in the long term.

“We are excited to roll out this innovative program in India. We are hopeful that our children will not only leverage STEM education in building their future careers but also will grow up and develop leadership ability in finding sustainable solutions in various walks of life,” said Mr. Santanu Mishra, Co-founder & Executive Trustee, of Smile Foundation.

The NXplorers Juniors will train both 6th and 7th-grade students. NXplorers Juniors Level-I course will be delivered through a combination of a teacher’s guide, PowerPoint slides, and several instructional videos. The facilitator guide will outline the essentials to be covered in each session, exercises, discussion, checkpoint questions, a summary, assessment, and research to be undertaken by students after the session.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), exploring SDG Solutions, researching global goals, developing a challenge and choosing a solution, etc. are covered in the NXplorers Juniors Level-1.

NXplorers – Learning for a Life Time, envisions providing a minimum of 3-5 years of NXplorers exposure to the students at various levels. The objectives include developing strong knowledge and skill set among students so that local and global challenges can be addressed by them. Developing sustainable models of implementation by engaging teachers, school leaders, and communities effectively, and creating awareness amongst parents regarding the importance of STEM education, especially concerning girl education is part of the overall goals.

Robotics Training organized at IIT Bombay for kids

January 25, 2023, Mumbai: The three-phase workshops at IIT Bombay might prove to be a life-changing experience for the 240 selected students of class VIII & IX from six Mission Education centres of Smile Foundation across Mumbai, Thane and Palghar districts.

The robotics workshop is being conducted under the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) initiatives of Smile Foundation in collaboration with the Electronics and Robotics Club (ERC) of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. The facilitation partner, Gnaan U Education, played an important role in organizing the workshops.

As part of the programme, the on-campus Robotics workshop helped the students gain conceptual knowledge of the Electronics and Robotics field viz. physics, mechanics, electrical current and motors, soldering and basics of computer programming.

Prof. Rajesh Zele, Dept. of Electrical Engineering at IIT Bombay told the children, “You have come out of your comfort zone to a place like IIT Bombay to learn new things; you have the courage to speak in front of such a large class; you worked in teams to build your bots, and realized that nothing is impossible! Coming to IIT and learning Robotics is not the most important thing, but finding your interests, and pursuing them diligently to do something worthwhile in life, is very important. That is what you have learnt here!”

The children also got hands-on experience in building a Remote Controlled (RC) motor car. They successfully made 40 such cars in a self-learning manner. They competed in “Race Track” and “Bot Fight” competition with their cars. This programme is offered to first year IIT-Bombay students on the campus, and this year, these school students got an opportunity to participate in it.

“The NEP recommends that STEM learning gets due importance in the process of child education. These endeavours and encouragements will play crucial roles not only in building the future of our children but also in the process of nation-building,” said Mr. Santanu Mishra, Co-Founder and Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation.

The students were provided demonstration of RC Drones by Aeromodelling Club, IIT Bombay, to further their exposure in machines. The students were presented with various projects at IIT Bombay including underwater vehicle from other departments too.

IIT Bombay

A Career Guidance session was conducted to guide the children on how to pursue a career in Engineering.

“Programmes like these provide hands-on exposure to students. They get experiential learning instead of theoretical learning. It generates a self-belief in them that they can not only understand science but also apply it to create machines. They can also see what good quality education empowers them to do. This is great work by Smile Foundation,” elucidated Mr. Gnanesh Mehta, founder of Gnaan U Education.

The Electronics and Robotics Club (ERC) is the official student club for Electronics and Robotics at IIT-B that organizes events, lectures, hackathons, competitions, at the premier institute. The members of the ERC gained a unique experience in teaching engineering concepts to school students. They also appreciated the benefits of such exposure for the school students.

“Experiential learning programmes such as these provide hands-on knowledge, as envisioned by our New Education Policy. I sincerely thank Smile Foundation and Gnaan U Education for this opportunity,” said Mr. Sourabh Hanje, Convener of the Electronics and Robotics Club, IIT Bombay.

The selected children, besides gaining valuable exposure, also got to interact with students and faculty at the IIT Bombay, thereby availing an invaluable opportunity of mentoring. This was a unique opportunity of on-campus knowledge transfer by teaching school students at the IIT Bombay. A remarkable improvement in the children’s ability to answer application-based science questions was observed in the post-programme survey.