About Us

Rajeev and Arpita Agarwal established the Foundation for Excellence, a charitable trust in Mumbai in 2001, a grant making organization to support educational opportunities. In 2018, we established Kabeer Excellence Foundation, a Section 8 company to operate and scale our programs in Uttar Pradesh. In 2024, we received FCRA registration which allows us to expand our programs to additional schools.

Our mission is to help all students reach their full potential. 

Growing up in Shahjahanpur, Rajeev Agarwal experienced limited education opportunities at Government Intermediate College. Despite limited support, he qualified and graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. Starting in 1998, Arpita and Rajeev Agarwal committed to helping student families that must rely on schools that offer free education.

Our foundations are funded by MAQ Software and entities associated with Arpita and Rajeev Agarwal.

We believe that technology can help transform human condition in low-income, large states like Uttar Pradesh. To bridge digital divide in low income student families, we provide counselling and computing support across 27 UP districts and Tehsils.

We are grateful for the support of outstanding teachers, Principals and Managers that are committed to success and wellbeing of their students.

Our charitable foundations are guided by the Directors and Trustees:

1. Rajeev Agarwal

2. Arpita Agarwal

3. Sanjeev Goel

4. Atul Salagia (CA)

5. Sunil Goyal

6. Col. Pramod Khanijow (Retired)

7. Amrish J. Shah

8. Naveen K. Pallayil

9. Rohit K. Jha

In addition, our school programs are staffed by over 300 volunteers (local youth) that are dedicated to success of their students. Disciplined leadership by our local school volunteers has helped us scale our programs to additional schools in new districts.

Background:

Uttar Pradesh (UP) is one of the poorest states where over 220 million people live in 75 districts. Literacy rates for women averages 65%. In the national education achievement (NAS) surveys, UP students are near the bottom among 29 states in India. Per capita income in UP is ~ ₹83,000 per year (living on less than ₹227 per day.)

Our target schools suffer from a chronic shortage and absenteeism of teachers, poor curriculum, extreme poverty, and poor management. Student instruction days in the schools are limited to 100 - 150 days per year (as opposed to prescribed 220 days per year) due to celebrations, mourning, weather, and law and order related disturbances. Our target schools lacked teachers (almost 30-50% positions unfilled). For over 200 days/ year, school buildings are vacant since classes are not held.

We support the lowest 20% income student families that send their students to free government aided schools in the towns. Our target students disproportionately represent religious minorities and traditionally disadvantaged communities (mostly caste based.)

To reduce the digital divide, we work with select schools attended by target families to set up low cost computer labs with 20-30 computers each. We hire local youth to staff the labs (3 per lab) to provide digital access 365 days per year, 12 -14 hours per day. To encourage reading, we provide children’s books in each lab for students.  In addition, we may provide tablet computers to provide access to Android apps (such as Read Along by Google.)

Our lab staff are recent graduates who are encouraged to use the lab to develop skills and qualify for open jobs. Our program is designed to be low cost, scalable, innovative, and replicable to other communities.

Based on our success, OBAT Helpers, Bangladesh has implemented the same program in refugee camps in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

We evaluate our program on the following four metrics: Scalability, innovation, financial sustainability, and easy replicability.

Innovation and Scalability

We designed our program to be scalable to thousands of schools around the world. Our innovation and scalability come from three key areas: technology, operational excellence, and people.

Technology:

• Use the latest hardware (Raspberry PI 5 desktop computer from the Raspberry PI Foundation, UK) at a low cost (₹ 8,500 including GST) with free operating system – Raspberry Pi Operating System based on Linux. Additional 21.5” monitor, keyboard, and mouse, etc. for ₹ 5,600. 

• Use free Khan Academy online in Hindi for Math video lessons, assessment, and tracking of student progress.

• Use the free Duolingo language application to teach English.

• Map free course material to UP Board/ CBSE curriculum in Hindi for Class 6 to Class 10.

• Provide high quality desks, chairs, stools, etc. purchased from IKEA, Hyderabad assembled using simple tools.

• For the safety of students, use Internet connected web cameras to monitor labs remotely.

Operational Excellence:

• Run school labs for 12 hours per day, 365 days per year (independent of school calendar with only 120 actual student instruction days).

• Provide access to all students regardless of the actual school they attend (encourage closest local school).

• Use WhatsApp groups to share pictures, real-time updates, National Education Policy 2020, and daily progress with Principals, Managers, and community members.

• Offer free e-skill National Skill Development Mission courses with certificates.

• Organize offline classes for the students to encourage them during vacations and holidays. 

• Refresh SD card hard disk in Raspberry PI computers every three months. Traditional computers stop working due to software configuration and poor maintenance. No need to rely on expensive and hard to find IT system engineers in remote locations.

People:

• Offer a six-month volunteer position with a monthly stipend to local youth to learn and teach Mathematics (build resume, work ethic, social service mindset, customer service, etc.).

• Build instruction capacity in schools themselves to aspire higher.

• Recruit local youth staying close to computer labs to volunteer (paid monthly stipend).

• Staff each lab with three staff volunteers (not one) to ensure adequate coverage.

• Encourage staff volunteers to study when lab is not busy, prepare for competitive examinations.

Financial Sustainability

Conceptualized to be low operating cost with minimal technical expertise and overheads.

User Fees:

• Currently, we do not charge user fees to our students.

• A user fee of ₹ 250 for completing the entire yearly math curriculum may sustain the operational cost of the program (1,000 students X ₹250 = ₹2,50,000 per year, a great bargain!)

Donations and Sponsorships:

• Given Uttar Pradesh’s low per capita income, it is unlikely that we will attract local donors. 

• Based on the success of the program, we may attract corporate donors.

Manage staffing expenses:

• All volunteer staff are trained in computers, curriculum, and software tools to avoid specialists.

• Labs are maintained by volunteer staff members.

Reduce electricity expenses:

• Raspberry PI 5 single board computers use 15 Watt USB-C power adapters (same as cell phone charger) unlike traditional 300-Watt desktop computers.

• Replace old fans with the latest fans to reduce electricity consumption from 200 Watts to 30 Watts 

• Use LED 27 Watts tube lights instead of old 75-Watt incandescent CFL bulbs

Easy Replicability

Barriers to replicability generally include specialized technology (expensive), complex processes (hard to manage), and high costs (affordability.) We use commodity hardware, free software, and do not rely on skilled personnel in remote districts.

Any organization can deploy low-cost Raspberry PI 5 with 8GB RAM desktop computers (not low powered) designed for developing countries for education. Install standard 21.5” monitors, standard keyboard, and mouse.

• From our humble beginning of one school lab, all girls’ Muslim majority school in Shahjahanpur, in May 2019, now our program has been replicated to 105 labs in 21 districts of Uttar Pradesh. We plan to set up 200 labs in 35 districts by the end of 2024.

• We can teach an entire year of Class 6 Math for Rs. 250 per student with online tracking of student attendance and course completion certificate from Khan Academy.

• Our program has been replicated in refugee camps in Bangladesh through OBAT Helpers - https://obathelpers.org/.

• Our program has been replicated to one low-cost private school in Bareilly, UP.

• To provide low-cost digital access, we encourage the state government to set up one learning lab in each block of each district.