Sridhar Vembu, an ex silicon star and the founder of Zoho Corporation, made it to newspapers a few months back for coming up with an unconventional template for rural education. Staying true to Vembu’s vision of the world where students are educated locally and provided a means of livelihood that matches their skills in their villages, the school will hopefully set the ball rolling for reverse migration. The school provides free food along with free education to students and throws grades, degrees, affiliations, or ‘credentialism’ as Mr Vembu puts it, out of the window, drafting a new, groundbreaking model for rural education.
This is not the first time Vembu’s experimental projects laced with social missions have garnered the attention of the business world. Zoho University, a sister concern of Zoho Corporation has helped hundreds of students who had to leave their education halfway build a career over the last decade. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoho launched the comprehensive solution Remotely, to help make the transition to work from home easier for companies and BackToWork for the smooth and safe reopening of offices, which will continue to be free for the rest of the year.