Pratham fundraising gala
Pratham’s Bay Area gala raised funds to provide learning opportunities to 32,500 children in India, covering projects in Literacy and Learning, Girls Education, Vocational Training, Reach and Advocacy.
Dr. Vishal Sikka, Founder and CEO of Vian.ai headlined the annual Fundraising Gala on Saturday, May 18, at the Palo Alto Golf and Country Club. Sikka spoke about his and his wife’s shared love for education and alignment with Pratham’s cause.
“Both of our moms have been teachers. Pratham is very special to us with its main focus on education and its adaptiveness and evolution is a sign of a living organization,” said Sikka. He mentioned the scalability of the non-profit’s Hamara Gaon (‘Our Village’) Program before delving into the current and future of AI and its impact on people’s livelihood.
The impact of AI
“Only about 180 million people of the world’s population of 8.2 billion have used the ChatGPT program, implying that it has just scratched the surface. Only around 1.5 million can build an AI system and of these, only around 50,000 spread in the 30-mile radius in Silicon Valley can build an advanced AI application. This distribution is very asymmetric that such a small number are building the systems of tomorrow for the whole world. The only way this asymmetry can change is via education,” said Sikka.
“It is critical that we understand what is going on and children in India are also closely involved and engaged in this new wave of AI.”
He reiterated that understanding the impact of AI in the education space is critical. “Increasingly in the time of AI, we will be in a situation where skills that can be learned in a simple rote way will be better learned by an AI system than by people. Teaching the skills of the future is the way to help people make a life, like vocational training is teaching them how to make a living at present,” said Sikka.
He closed with a message adapted from Neil Postman’s quote ‘Children are the messages we sent to the future.’ “Children are the future we send to the future,” said Sikka.
A Story of Transformation
The program featured a live interview with Manushi Yadav, Director, Strategy and Partnership, Pratham USA, and Siddhi, a graduate of Pratham’s Second Chance Program For Women.
Siddhi, a student from a village in Rajasthan, quit school at the age of 12 to support her family financially. When Pratham offered a chance to go back to school, there was no looking back. Siddhi’s mom enrolled her immediately. “Pratham transformed my whole life,’ said Siddhi in a live video chat. “My life has changed because I have studied. I am no longer scared and now I can easily go out and meet people and easily do bank chores or interact with hospital personnel. Getting my first salary check as a Pratham employee was a sweet sentimental moment for me and my family. When I got married, my mom told my in-laws that we are not giving you a dowry but a self-reliant girl.”
Before Siddhi shared her story, Yadav, who has worked with Pratham for the last ten years told the audience, “We have the best technology, data powering our solutions, and great program designers and content experts in our central and state offices designing our programs but the last person on the ground who knows locally the people is the person guiding us to a viable solution. Pratham has 7000 of these local people connecting us to 20,000 communities from where we are getting inputs of impact from mothers, teachers, children, and volunteers.”
San Francisco Bay Area Chapter Co-Presidents, Balagopalan Ramakrishnan and Ari Daman and Gala Chair Kalpana Handu Guha thanked the patrons for their generosity towards the cause.
