Our journey

On 1st April 2014, the Government of India made an amendment to the Companies Act 2013 and made India the world’s first country to mandate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spending on its most profitable companies. Given that India was already thriving with technology platforms, products and talent, individuals like Mr. Lehar Tawde and Mr. Lavin Mirchandani - who dreamt to change the system with technology – suddenly saw an opportunity to create products and programs that could be scaled aggressively, like conventional technology products, with support from philanthropic arms of large organizations, since Govt. schools and their students couldn’t afford the upfront costs themselves.

To develop technology products and design social impact programs for any audience, it is imperative for the creator to know the audience. At the outset, Mr. Lehar Tawde and Mr. Lavin Mirchandani knew little about the India’s public education system at the K-12 level, so they undertook months of Secondary Research to understand the nuances of this system. Soon after, they quit their jobs and decided to conduct Primary Research that brought them face-to-face with quantitative and qualitative realities of what is happening at the grass-root level. Their journey into this space started in Palghar, Maharashtra, which was a newly formed district at that point.

In Palghar, Mr. Lehar Tawde and Mr. Lavin Mirchandani started engaging with the Hon'ble District Collector and Education Officers, who were kind enough to share a plethora of information with them, besides permitting them to visit Govt. schools to capture data directly from key stakeholders therein. After three months of staying in Palghar, Mr. Lehar Tawde and Mr. Lavin Mirchandani managed to analyze quantitative and qualitative data across 570 schools in the Palghar block of the district. This extensive research, coupled with years of experience creating technology products and programs for Govt. schools has built Studeasy Bharat Foundation into what it is today.