From here to there and back

I just read a post (originally published over a month ago) about a non-profit started by a young woman a few years ago.  It 'identifies, trains and mentors' smart, promising girl students from highly disadvantaged backgrounds to complete their education and prepare for careers.  The training sounds a bit like finishing school for business (and entrepreneurship) and the result is a bunch of highly motivated girls dreaming of building the next Google - in India.

The non-profit, Roshni Academy, was founded by Salma Hasan, while she was a junior at college and has significant funding from Silicon Valley philanthropists.  There are a couple of cool aspects to this social enterprise:

• Like other Stanford students, Salma started a venture and got funding while still at school, except this was for a social cause
• The Academy focuses on teaching/building intangibles - confidence, public speaking, conflict resolution (!) - not just academic skills

But what I find most impressive is that Salma wants to bring the same techniques here to the US where there many under-resourced girls with a lot of potential who don't even know the kind of futures they could have.  A model pioneered in India being brought to the under-served communities in the US is fascinating at many levels - including the fact that the idea was hatched by a student in the US to help solve a problem in India and is being brought back to address the same problem here.  It would be interesting to see how well it works in the US and how much tweaking, if any, needs to happen to fit this culture.

Mentoring (along with training) is key to getting students to dream - and achieve - big, especially if they are not exposed to a high-achieving environment in their families or communities.  Fortunately, there seems to be a renewed interest in mentoring in the US, maybe due to the combined pressures of the economy and an under-performing public education system.  The Roshni Academy may be a timely solution.  You can read Vivek Wadhwa's entire post here and watch the video and end the week feeling good about social entrepreneurs who dream and achieve.