Open Learning Initiative (OLI), a YouTube channel run by students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay recently notched up one lakh subscribers. OLI, a knowledge platform that provides school going students with educational videos free of cost, is an initiative undertaken by the education outreach team of the National Service Scheme (NSS) of IIT-Bombay, the institute’s largest social student body.
Founded in 2015 by Yash Sanghvi, an activity associate of NSS, OLI features videos in nine regional languages — Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Odiya, Telugu, Bengali and Kannada.
Unfortunate realisation
“In 2015, we at NSS used to volunteer at several NGOs. For one such NGO called Vidya, we were asked to search for educational videos in regional languages on the web as a part of an audio-visual series it was developing for the students. However, to our dismay, we couldn’t find a single credible source that streamed quality videos in regional languages. That’s when we conceived the idea of OLI. Our motive was to not let language be a barrier for students who wished to receive a quality education,” Mr. Sanghvi told The Hindu .
“Initially, we made videos in Hindi and Marathi for students at Vidya and later expanded to other languages,” he said, adding that the videos cover concepts in science and mathematics. Now a graduate in mechanical engineering working with a start-up, Mr. Sanghvi still contributes to OLI.
Vaibhav Chandan, a third-year engineering student and the head of the education outreach team of NSS, spoke about the structure of OLI and their expansion plans. “We have a three-tier process for it. The first-year students make raw videos which are edited and reviewed by second-year students and finally approved and uploaded by the head of the department. We have a content development team that caters to the language section. Initially, when we started making videos in languages other than Hindi and Marathi, we faced trouble finding scientific and technical terms in the specific language,” he said.
“However, that is what sets us apart from other learning apps and platforms. All of them feature videos in English and some of them in Hindi. Our aim was to reach out to students who do not have English as their first language. Knowledge beyond language has always been our motto,” he added.
When asked about their expansion plans, Mr. Chandan said, “Currently the channel has around 320 videos for students from Class VI to X. We now plan to go below Class VI, and also cater to students of Classes XI and XII.”
“The response to the channel was huge and welcoming since the beginning,” said Mr. Sanghvi while recalling a particular incident. “There’s a place called Girdi in Jharkhand, which is a Naxal area. A low-income school there was trying to find online educational content to make up for the scarcity of teachers. They began using our videos regularly and later informed us that the attendance rate in the school had actually increased due to it,” he said.
OLI has a team of about 20 undergraduate students. All videos of the channel are made under Creative Common License, which means they are free to use, share and modify.
Published - October 11, 2019 01:28 am IST
