The interviews and reporting for this story have been carried out in February 2025.

A younger boy in a distant village in Tamil Nadu rigorously locations a VR headset over his eyes. Immediately, his world transforms from a modest classroom with chalk-dusted blackboards to a futuristic panorama full of coding simulations and immersive digital experiences. 

This isn’t a distant dream however a actuality made attainable by 22-year-old Harshini Kishore Singh, an entrepreneurship graduate, bridging the digital divide for rural youngsters in India.

 

Harshini, initially from Madurai, is the founding father of Rural Tech Rise, an initiative devoted to bridging the digital and entrepreneurial divide for underprivileged youngsters. By day, she trains and educates younger minds; by night time, she works as an IT worker to fund her mission.

From gift-making to offering the reward of data

Harshini’s entrepreneurial spirit ignited early. On the age of 16, she began her first enterprise in company gifting. “I’ve been working totally different jobs since I used to be 14,” she says. Throughout the pandemic, she personally delivered 100 Diwali gifting packing containers, an expertise that formed her understanding of enterprise and resilience. 

“My first enterprise failed because of the lack of publicity and information, however that failure pushed me to pursue entrepreneurship as a university diploma,” she recollects. 

Shifting to Bengaluru for faculty in 2021 additional refined her perspective. “Initially, enterprise was all about revenue and margins for me. However in faculty, issues modified,” says Harshini. “We had night courses from 4 to eight pm, whereas mornings have been spent on internships and brainstorming entrepreneurship concepts,” she shares, who pursued her BBA in entrepreneurship from Jain (Deemed to be College).

 

She additionally undertook a management CSR mission, volunteering with Train for India for 50 hours at a authorities faculty, instructing ‘social emotion’, which proved to be a turning level in her life. “I labored with youngsters who had no mother and father, no background, and typically no dwelling. That have made me realise the deep gaps in Indian training,” she says. 

She used her financial savings from varied jobs she undertook, together with a stint on the Google Operations Centre in Bengaluru at age 18, the place she was the youngest worker with a package deal of Rs 9 LPA. She invested her earnings to realize her training mission.

“I wished to transcend instructing social feelings for the youngsters. The category I taught roughly had 30 youngsters and I used to be in a position to enhance their high quality of residing. A lot of the youngsters got here from poor and abusive household backgrounds,” shares Harshini.

“I used to be in a position to assist these youngsters to know training and societyhigher. This created the drive to make efforts to rework different youngsters’s lives as nicely,” provides Harshini.

 

Recognising the growing menace of cybercrimes, she labored actively in DigiSafe, an organization based by her sister, Sushmitha Kishore Singh. This initiative centered on educating authorities and personal faculty youngsters about web security and serving to them navigate by means of the digital world responsibly. 

“So as to add credibility to my work, I additionally turned a licensed Cyber Crime Intervention Officer,” says Harshini, a qualification required to formally train cybersecurity to youngsters. By DigiSafe, she carried out coaching programmes, making younger minds conscious of on-line threats and equipping them with the instruments to guard themselves.

 

“Harshini took duty for Digisafe once I needed to transfer overseas for my masters and issues have been functioning easily due to her. For instance, we had taken up a mission of making 100 movies for the CBSE faculty youngsters which Harshini executed very well,” shares Sushmitha.

Whereas operating DigiSafe, Harshini realised that rural youngsters lacked entry to even essentially the most primary digital instruments, not to mention cybersecurity training. This perception led her to ascertain Rural Tech Rise, an initiative introducing expertise training to underprivileged college students. 

From establishing cell libraries full of books to bringing cutting-edge instruments like VR and robotics into school rooms, her work has remodeled studying experiences for 1000’s of youngsters.

The start of Rural Tech Rise

Based in 2024 and registered not too long ago, Rural Tech Rise extends digital literacy and entrepreneurship coaching to youngsters in rural communities. Constructing on her expertise with Digisafe, Harshini established this initiative to introduce youngsters from rural communities to digital actuality (VR), synthetic intelligence (AI), and cybersecurity. 

“We take VR headsets to rural colleges, which now we have obtained from an Australian College, letting youngsters expertise expertise hands-on. They’re fascinated as a result of they’ve solely seen such tech on YouTube, however by no means had entry to it,” she explains. 

“We additionally develop our personal curriculum to show the youngsters,” shares Harshini, who makes use of the facility of group language to make sure the youngsters perceive the ideas nicely. “We don’t use any technical jargon as typically these youngsters don’t have entry to regular training,” Harshini provides — one thing that their group is striving to stability out.

 

Licensed by ISAC (Data Sharing and Evaluation Centre), Harshini and her group led workshops on moral hacking consciousness and digital safety. “Throughout our classes, youngsters have come ahead admitting they’ve despatched inappropriate photos on-line, later discovering them misused. We contacted ISAC and helped resolve such instances, making it a lesson for them,” she explains. 

Additionally they conduct dwell moral hacking demonstrations, displaying college students how one mistake — like clicking an unknown hyperlink — can compromise their web security and system safety.

Constructing younger entrepreneurs

Rural Tech Rise additionally consists of entrepreneurship coaching for schoolchildren, specializing in fostering a enterprise mindset fairly than a job-seeking mentality. 

One in every of Rural Tech Rise’s most modern features is its Shark Tank, a pitching spherical launched in 2024 in Sholavandhan, Madurai. “We maintain pitching rounds in rural areas, awarding money prizes for the very best concepts. After each coaching session, youngsters current their enterprise concepts, and so they take it severely,” Harshini shares.

“I need to introduce the concept of entrepreneurship to those youngsters, and I additionally need them to give attention to the affect and never simply the money-making side,” shares Harshini.

 

Her group consists of 10 core members — all faculty college students from courses 7 to 9 — whom she skilled. “They’ve their ventures established and registered. One boy teaches folks by means of magic. A woman needs to arrange a hair salon. They need to not simply work for revenue however perceive their objective,” she explains.

13-year-old Dharun finds Harshini’s steerage to be insightful. “Earlier than the session, I solely had the concept of doing one thing with magic. It was Harshini ma’am who guided me so as to add the factor of training and instructing science experiments into my love for magic,” shares Dharun, the founding father of Magic Web — an initiative that teaches youngsters science by means of the assistance of magic.

With the right steerage, Dharun has been in a position to train over 40 youngsters the fantastic thing about science by means of the phantasm of magic. “By working with Ma’am, I get to study much more about entrepreneurship and what I can do with it once I develop up,” shares Dharun.

Overcoming challenges and increasing the mission

Harshini acknowledges the difficulties in gaining group belief. “Many assume we’re right here for publicity, so registering the corporate gave us credibility,” she says. She additionally faces useful resource limitations, limiting faculty visits to twice a month. Nevertheless, she envisions a self-sustainable mannequin, the place skilled sub-leaders can broaden the initiative.

Harshini at present works night time shifts at Vivid Champ, an EdTech firm, counselling college students on monetary literacy. Her earnings go towards funding Rural Tech Rise. “I work at night time and use that cash to gasoline my morning social work,” she says. 

Her dedication paid off — her programmes have now collectively educated over 5,000 youngsters throughout her 4 ventures, primarily from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka!

 

“In the long term, I need to present scholarships for high quality training, herald world partnerships, and broaden our group to a minimal of 100 members. If everybody takes care of their group, no nook of India might be under-educated,” she says.

Along with her unwavering dedication, Harshini is not only imparting technical expertise — she’s shaping younger minds, fostering self-reliance, and redefining the long run for 1000’s of rural youngsters. In a world the place lack of time is usually an excuse to keep away from social work, Harshini proves that every one you want is ardour and dedication to make a distinction!

All photos courtesy Harshini Kishore Singh