ThinkZone’s 2020 in review

ThinkZone’s 2020 in review

We had a very interesting year at ThinkZone. The pandemic in 2020 did affect our work but we managed to reach out to children through innovative ways. This year would be marked with the spirit of the team who didn’t hesitate from experimentation and was always determined.  Let’s take a look at the highlights of this year.

January 2020

By the end of 2019, we had been working with schools and anganwadis and learning centers across Cuttack, Kendrapara, Bhadrak, and Khorda. We believe that an important role in teaching and learning is stories. Stories make learning practical and help develop character and personality in children. Throughout January we organized reading sessions in partnership with Kolibri – Learning Equality (Google.org) and Pratham Books Story Weaver. During these reading sessions, children read stories in groups, helped each other, and had great fun.
Apart from this, we started providing training modules for Anganwadi workers who were a part of our program through IVR. Remote technology like IVR, phone calls, and SMS was also used throughout the month to reach out to the community and parents of children and encourage them to teach their children at home as well using simple activities.

February 2020 

February was the last eventful month before the pandemic happened. There were capacity building workshops organized for our team members, trainers, and community educators across three districts. These workshops were meant for the team to come together, revisit our mission, and go through the program in detail. There were skill-building sessions, planning sessions, and lots of brainstorming.
February 2020 was also remarkable because our work was published in “The Vision of Antyodaya” compiled by the Government of India. This book documents the 200 best practices of sustainable development in the country launched by the Honourable Vice President of India himself.
Link to the book
February also marks our association with HDFC Bank’s CSR Initiative Parivartan. ThinkZone was among the top startups awarded with Smartup Grants by HDFC Bank.
Link to Smartup Grants news

March 2020

In March 2020, our team had organized Child Safety Awareness Workshop for primary schools in Bhadrak District. This was conducted in schools where ThinkZone is working with Adani Foundation to implement Quality Learning Initiative. Through these workshops, children were made aware of good touch-bad touch, along with other safety measures they can use in their daily lives.
8th March is celebrated across the world as International Women’s Day. We celebrated this day with the #SheInspiresUs campaign to share stories of our women team members and educators. You can read this story on our websites.
Link to our Twitter account

April 2020

As the pandemic happened, schools and anganwadis were temporarily shut down and children had to stay at home risking exposure to the virus. ThinkZone began with a unique initiative to help in the education of children during these troubled times. Our Home-Based Learning Program was now being implemented by parents at their home for their children. Through this program, parents would listen to byte-sized educational activities through IVR, automated phone calls, and SMS. They could teach various concepts of language and arithmetic through these activities.
We also partnered with local radio to encourage more parents to listen to these activities and educate children during the pandemic.
We received a very positive response from parents for these programs.

May 2020

On receiving a lot of positive responses towards the Home-Based Learning Program, we continued providing activities to parents. We also took feedback from parents and children on how they were finding these activities and how much children are learning through them. We also started engaging our community educators, who were now regularly calling the parents and helping them to do these activities. 
In May, our work was also extensively covered by several states and national media houses like Times Of India, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Dharitri, Sambad Odisha, Samaj Odisha, EdTech Review, and Orissa Diary. It had also been mentioned by our partners on their blogs such as Gray Matters Capital, Unlimited India, and International Youth Foundation. 

June 2020

Understanding the shift in the world due to the pandemic and keeping to the times we started online workshops for community educators, Anganwadi workers, and school teachers. We discussed with them the changing world, the rise of online ways of education, and on supporting our Home-Based Learning Program. Workshops were conducted for educators across the districts of Cuttack, Kendrapara, and Bhadrak.
By June, our Home Based Learning Program had completed three successful months of being implemented. We had shared with parents several hundred hours of activities and we were receiving some really nice pictures of how they were doing these activities at home.
We had also begun with our Toll-Free IVR number through which parents could listen to activities anytime they wanted. We are still receiving hundreds of calls on our IVR every week.

July 2020

July would be marked with publishing our first Annual Report. The Annual Report for 2019-20 was a tour of all the work we did during the year, a peek into all of our programs and the features of our program. It tracks our growth through all these years and sheds light on our future plans. You can download this report from our website.
Annual Report Link
This month, we were still continuing with two of our major programs. Our Home-Based Learning Program had been reaching out to parents and providing them with activities to help in the education of their children. We were also conducting online workshops for the skill development of our educators.
One of the highlights of this month was our collaboration with Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan. Our Time fellowship provides an opportunity for the youth to run their own learning center while upskilling themselves through offline and online training. NYKS became our partner in implementation for the same.

August 2020

Highlights of August had been that ThinkZone’s work was featured in Al Jazeera and Global Voices. On Al Jazeera, Binayak Acharya, CEO ThinkZone, was invited for a panel discussion on “Indian Children losing out on Schooling” where our Home-Based Learning Program was also featured. You can find the link to the video and the article on Global Voices on our website.
Al Jazeera, Global Voices
Looking at how the pandemic had affected everyone including our own team, we conducted a well-being session for the team. We discussed how our lives have changed and how little things can make living better even during the pandemic.
We also conducted workshops for school leaders in Bhadrak and discussed ways to encourage parents to take up activities with children at their homes.

September 2020

September 5 is celebrated as Teacher’s Day in India. September for ThinkZone was honoring teachers and we did this through a small competition. We asked teachers to send writeups on what inspires them every day and makes them a teacher. We received entries from all over India and some beautiful writeups. These writeups are available on our website.
We also entered into a partnership with ISRN in September. We became their training and implementation partner for Antyodaya Shiksha Preraks Program. Some of our team members also participated in a podcast with Desire foundation on the topic – “Young Leaders on Education”.
The highlight was that we published our Impact Report which gives an insight into the impact of each and every aspect of our programs. It consists of our learnings from the real-time data captured from assessments, feedback, and monitoring. You can download the report from our website.
ThinkZone’s Impact Report

October 2020 

As things looked better and the restrictions for COVID 19 eased down, our community educators reopened their learning centers. While following safety protocols, children turned up in the centers and have started getting an education during these troubled times. Our fellows are also a part of ISRN’s Antyodaya Shiksha Prerak Program.
We also partnered with budli.in with a unique Device to Dream Initiative. In this initiative, you can donate your used smartphones, tablets, and laptops for children and educators in their learning centers.
Link to the website
ThinkZone’s work was also featured on Nandighosha TV and on the Voice of Change Series. The latter is a collaborative project by Volunteer for India, 360 degree,s and Learnsville to explore volunteerism in India.

November 2020

November is a very special month for us because we celebrate our foundation day. The entire team came together for a day-long celebration and reflection session. This day was marked with reminiscence to the old days and planning the future along with some team building games.
The highlight of the month was our partnership with Mo School Abhiyan. In a pilot program with them and the Government of Odisha, we are implementing the home-based learning program in seven clusters across the districts of Cuttack, Khorda, and Bhadrak in Odisha.
We also ran a #TechAtThinkZone campaign to share our technology. We shared various animations and videos from parents and educators on how they are using our mobile application and remote technology to teach children. You can watch these videos on our YouTube Page.
Link to our Youtube Page

December 2020

Last but not least.
Throughout December we have been continuing with our Home Based Learning Program and Online workshops for educators. This month’s highlight however was that our work was featured in Forbes.
Link to the article
Apart from this, we have started an Independent Evaluation (RCT) to assess the impact of our initiatives on the learning outcomes of children in the program. We are also hosting a first-ever Edtech Hackathon for Impact in January 2021. This hackathon will give an opportunity for all tech enthusiasts to showcase their coding skills and give back to society.
Link to Hackathon page
We organized a Battle of Tweets Game for our team where they had to come up with creative ideas for our social media. All team members did extremely well in this game and also came up with excellent blogs. Go through these amazing blogs of our team members sharing their memorable experiences and inspirations on the website.