More Apps to Play With : From the Studio of Tanay Kothari and His Team
9 years ago
In April 2014, we were introduced to Tanay Kothari – a bright and intelligent 11th grader from DPS RK Puram. He and his friends had already been working on developing apps and he was keen on experimenting with our Creative Commons licensed content. Over the months, we’ve received numerous mails from Tanay outlining the ideas he has, the different features he wants to introduce in the apps and more. One of Tanay’s first mails stated ‘I am really excited about working with Pratham Books, and the main reason I want to do this is to help children find joy in learning, which I believe is the most essential thing in a child’s education.’
Not only did Tanay create the app, he wanted to run a pilot with kids who would actually be using it. Tanay and his team have worked on creating 8 apps till now : Too Much Noise, Fat King Thin Dog, The Auto That Flew, Anaya’s Thumb, Bheema the Sleepyhead, The Red Raincoat, Goodnight Tinku, Everything Looks New.
Tanay writes about his experience of developing these apps with our content and actually seeing them being used by kids…
I never imagined that the lifestyles of people could be so diverse, even in modern metros like Delhi. My recent visit to schooling centres in the suburbs run by Pratham, India’s largest NGO, gave me a new perspective of the world around me.
I started working with Pratham Books in April ’14, after I wanted to use my skills to give back to the society. Pratham Books is an organization with the aim of putting a book in every child’s hands. They publish high quality story books for children at low prices to make them accessible to children in rural areas. Their books reached far and wide through collaborative hard work, yet there were children in remote areas which could not get access to their physical library. Cut-off from the world by major modes of transportation, there was one mode of transportation which connected these areas to the rest of the world, namely, the Internet. And that was how I started my journey with Pratham Books; a journey which I never thought could have changed the way I look at life around me.
After months of meetings, hard work and night-outs, the seemingly ginormous task was finally complete. I had created a framework, and used it to digitize my first book. This framework would allow for future expansion, and further digitisation of books with incremental effort. Using this, even a ten year-old can do so, the process being as simple as drag-n-drop.
Our first book – Too Much Noise – was finally developed by Dec ’14, following which I planned a visit to the centres in the suburbs to get feedback on our new product and if it could really make a difference. Go to a school. Showcase the app. Get the questionnaire filled by the children. Go to the next center. Repeat. A process that seemed so simple was just about to change my life. On 20 Jan, I packed my bag, printed the questionnaires, ready for my first visit. Taking the metro, a rickshaw and then walking for 20 mins through narrow winding streets, got me to my destination – a small rural schooling centre in East Delhi.
I stepped into the first classroom. These weren’t like normal class rooms. Children of different classes sat in groups of 5-6 on mats, each group being taught by a teacher. As soon as I walked into the classroom, I was greeted with a resounding “Good Morning Sir!” as all the children welcomed me in. Getting them all into a circle, I showed them what the app had – a multilingual story with play-along text, in-story quizzes and interesting facts about objects and people in the book. I could sense pure delight on their faces as every tap on the screen surprised them. Even simple things as swiping to turn the page left them awestruck. All the different actions which happened on the screen created a magical aura, and the children’s happiness knew no bounds. I realized these were children who had never had access to technology. To them this was magic; and I, the magician, bringing to them this joy. This was a different kind of happiness that started to bud inside me. Not the transient kind, but one that was destined to leave me with a smile of satisfaction for time to come. For two days, we went from one centre to another, meeting children of all ages and every one of them was as excited as the rest. At one centre, a group of little girls decided to repay me for telling them a wonderful story, and wrote a story with me as the main character – a brave warrior prince. However small an incident, this was one of the things I will never forget.
These kids learnt a lot from the app and me, but I learnt a lot more. The most important of them being appreciation for every small thing in life. Most students from well-off families hate to go to school and view it as a burden. When I asked the same question to these children whose parents could barely afford to send them to school, the response was totally unexpected. “I love going to school”. “Because you can meet your friends there?”. “Yes, but mainly because I love to learn new things”. I was surprised to hear this. They thank god and their parents for every day that they are able to go to school, every new thing they learn, every book they are able to read, and every small gesture done towards them. This is one thing I could never have learned in school or in textbooks, and neither could anyone else.
Access the apps created by Tanay and his team : Too Much Noise, Fat King Thin Dog, The Auto That Flew, Anaya’s Thumb, Bheema the Sleepyhead, The Red Raincoat, Goodnight Tinku, Everything Looks New
