New York duo brings tech revolution to rural Amritsar schools

DigiAccess, in partnership with the Bharti Airtel Foundation, organised its first technology hackathon at Satya Bharti Senior Secondary School, Chogawan, Amritsar. Sixteen teams from seven schools across rural Punjab, representing classes VIII-XII, participated in the “How would you solve a problem in your community using technology?” themed event.

The students presented highly creative solutions, including prototypes of an automated Arduino-based dustbin that analyses different types of waste and signals, along with safety helmets with cameras and augmented reality features to reduce road accidents. Other ideas addressed challenges in education, sanitation and local governance.

In the first round, all 16 teams pitched their ideas before judges, with the top-six teams advancing to a virtual round. From there, three winning teams will be selected and each student from the winning teams will be awarded a personal laptop to take home. The event also featured guest speakers Kanishk Tyagi, Senior Software Engineer at American Express; and Ishpreet Kaur, Co-Founder of Sanjhi Sikhiya, an NGO working to strengthen public education systems in Punjab.

Focused on making tech-education inclusive for students of Punjab, especially the rural and remote belt, the co-founders of DigiAccess are two Punjabis now based in New York — Noor Virk and Simran Gill. Noor grew up in Chandigarh and now works in the technology sector and Simran Gill from Sangrur, Punjab, who is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in Data Science at Columbia University, NYC. They launched DigiAccess after receiving a Davis Projects for Peace USA grant to bridge the digital opportunity gap for rural students.

“We started this organisation because the world is advancing rapidly with technology especially due to AI, and students in Punjab should not be left behind,” said Virk. Simran said while they will plan and expand the programme to cover more schools in Punjab, the scale would depend on the generation of funds. “Since we will give laptops to the winners for easy access to technology as promised, we need to plan and chart out how to go beyond what we have currently planned. We are hopeful and we want to engage as many kids from schools in Punjab as possible,” he said.

Both believe that in the tech-driven world, education is the most effective tool for empowering young minds. The founders of DigiAccess said the initial aim of the programme is to expose students to the possibilities of technology, inspire them to innovate and provide the resources needed to create solutions that can change lives in their own communities.