Bengaluru: “We just don’t want to go back to the boring classrooms from a place which gives up a complete experience of what we are up to!”
The reaction was the same among all 32 students who spent the last 10 days at the Infosys campus in Electronics City as part of this year’s Spark Catch Them Young (CTY) programme.
For Harshit Goel from Frank Anthony Public School, the event appeared to help him realise more about himself and his interests. “We were happy to create and design websites in teams for different domains (e-commerce, food delivery, ticket-booking and so on), which at a point we thought was simple. The mentoring we got here is irreplaceable,” he said.
Aria Narayan Vikram from National Public School, Indiranagar felt the same sharing her opinion that teachers being accessible and approachable round the clock would automatically generate interest in the subject for students.
“Facilitators here encouraged us to learn from mistakes rather than directing us and thus such learning stay forever in students like me,” she said.
Shrishti Kulkarni, representing GEAR Innovative International School, experienced what an employee feels while at work, she shared. “Travelling in a bus to work and then indulging in wide conversations with team mates and hence reaching a conclusion approved by all to further to the next stage of the project - altogether helped me explore more of myself, probably becoming a better entrepreneur when I graduate,” she said.
Born to techie parents, Abel Birosh from Sri Aurobindo Memorial School walked away from the Infy campus confident of ‘knowing more of the industry’ than his mom. “My mom is amazed listening to what I speak at home now and she says I’ve picked up more in 10 days than what she has experienced during a decade at work,” he said.
The initiative, which aims to nurture craftsmanship for future with a hands-on experience in the sphere of Information Technology (IT), shortlisted the final 32 from over 220 eighth-graders representing various schools in the city.
“This programme, which began in 1997, tries to encourage more young talent from early teenagers, helping them interpret technologies alongside live industry mentors, rather than researching passive around their aspirations,” said an Infosys spokesperson, also part of the Education, Training and Assessment (ETA) team which is incharge for the programme.
