As an adult, on numerous occasions I’ve felt if only I’d read this book earlier, watched that movie earlier, understood my interests earlier, experienced life better and to sum it all up led a more intentional life. Like most people in countries like India, I too just went with the flow, did what I was told, studied subjects which I didn’t like particularly, worked really hard at a profession where I felt lost most of the time.

While my life journey for the most part was incidental than intentional, I was extremely lucky to get the company of some great minds, live in a different country, get opportunities that gave me the exposure to improve the quality of my thought. With the wisdom life has imparted on me so far, I realise that the best state one can be is to be purposeful doing something you like and that you are good at. Having said that, how do we find our purpose in life? It is not an easy question to answer. It needs a lot of soul searching and clarity of thought. One needs an open mind to get such clarity of thought. So how do we open our mind to get such clarity?

Reading, travelling, watching movies, interacting with diverse knowledgeable people, experiencing new things can all help in the process. Ideally the education that we get should also help us in the same. However, our current education system with its limitations might not be fulfilling this purpose in its misplaced focus on grades, exams and emphasis on few STEM subjects trying to balance the realities of survival economics in a developing country.

Almost everyone agrees that our education system needs a total rehaul on what we teach, how we teach, how much we teach and how we evaluate. While we wait for that to happen, I wanted to do my little bit to bridge the gap and that is where the idea of “Open your Mind” materialised. At "Open your mind", programs are designed to expose children to content and activities that will help in opening their mind and develop critical life skills. These programs are directed primarily for children in the age group of 9-13. This group was chosen as this is the age where opinions and biases are formed and hence one can be a positive influence in shaping their way of thinking.

An open mind not only gives you clarity of thought in helping you identify your passion and purpose but also helps in creativity and original thoughts. While in the corporate world, one of the consistent feedback in client surveys was that we (Indians) are excellent at process adherence and execution, but needed to improve in innovation and speaking up. I did wonder, how come the land of “jugaad” lacked originality. Jugaad is based on need or rather lack of resources forcing us to solve problems in our own way. As against originality and creativity comes from a free and open mind that is not afraid of failure to create something new, make something better.

We hope to be that positive change maker in Indian education system to shift our mindset from order takers to innovators who are not afraid to speak up.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” This is a famous quote from Steve Jobs. As the quote implies, how exactly this initiative will impact the children will only be known in the future. We do not have any tall claims that the child will score cent percent in English, become an avid reader or crack competitive exams. We simply hope our sessions will encourage them to have original thoughts, don’t accept things as they are, appreciate different point of views and above all make them a better human being.

• Not a replacement for what is taught in school

• Not an accelerator guaranteeing higher scores in subjects

• Not competing with similar ideas