TedX-PICT - Lessons from a Youth Activist - Aakash Shah

The founder and chairperson of Action For Pune Development, Aakash Shah, has been invited as a key-note speaker at numerous significant events across the world including United Nations My World 2.0 workshop in New York, UN Habitat-Young Social Innovators Conclave at Mumbai, Global Meeting of "Global Alliance for NGO's advocating for road safety at Marrakesh, Morocco & 35th session of Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

On September 30th 2017, Aakash was invited as a speaker at PICT TEDx 2017, which was hosted in Pune , attended by an audience of over 500. Aakash was the youngest speaker at the event. He shared his journey since inception and proved to be a strong source of motivation for engaging youth in community service and social development. Aakash has always been an inspiration to youth across the world. Being a youth activist and having worked with several multi-lateral agencies, he has successfully mobilised youth worldwide and formulated strategies for a number of global campaigns such as UN Millennium My World 2015 and World We Want, SaveKidsLives, HeForShe, etc. He has personified the power of youth and his exemplary work has been truly motivating not just for youth of the nation, but youth across the world. Aakash started his journey at a very young age, and is working towards integration of youth for the development process to secure a better future for generations to come. He has included several instances in his speech which focus on the role of the youth, thereby supporting his view that "Youth is the nation's blood and the architect of tomorrow's world"

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Reported By - Bina Goklaney, Editorial Team Head, A.P.D.

Computer Training Course with Hands on Learning at Mahila Ashram High School

A.P.D had recently collaborated with Mahila Ashram High School, Karve Nagar for our recent initiative which is educating young girls about the basics of computers. This activity was conducted from 23rd July to 4th August for over 500 girls of 8th grade. Before we took up this activity we conducted a survey and visited various schools in Pune. This survey was conducted to check whether computer education is given importance in schools and to our surprise Computer Education was not of major significance. The schools had computer classes, computer labs but no teacher to teach them.

We all know computers are an integral part of our lives and are increasingly becoming more important as teaching and training tools. Computer knowledge is essential from the career perspective as well. That is why we decided to take up this activity.

We started off by initially teaching the basics of computers and later proceeded with Microsoft Word. We had a weekly session of one hour each for every section of 8th grade.

During the first week of the activity the students were taught about the parts of the computer and their functions by showing them presentations.
In the following week we imparted basic information about Microsoft Word. Students were taught about the practical applications of Word and basic formatting tools.

We not only conducted theory sessions but it was a hands-on experience wherein the students were made to create a Word document themselves.
The session was successful as the students were cooperative and the teachers were extremely helpful.

We established a strong connect with the students which greatly helped us in teaching them to the best of our ability. This is a long-term activity which we plan to continue in collaboration with numerous schools across the city, with a horizon of reaching out to maximum students.

Youth empowerment and development is a trending topic in India.If a country's youth is educated it becomes a major asset for the country's development and educating the youth about computers will only help us and get us a little more closer to our goal.We really look forward at taking up more such activities which make an impact not only on the child's development but also help the country's development .

The course was designed by Nikhil Khanzode - Technical Head of Action for Pune Development, in collaboration with Mr. Yash Vardhan Agarwal, an IT Professional and B.Tech - Information Technology Graduate from Manipal Institute of Technology, Manipal and was conducted by A.P.D. Members who were given training prior to the activity.

Reported By

Divya Jain - Editoral Team, A.P.D.