Digital Gurukul | Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal

Signature programme

The students teach, and the neighbourhood learns.

Digital Gurukul turns the school’s students into teachers for a day. They set up a help desk on campus and sit with people from the neighbourhood, most of them much older, to work through the things a smartphone is supposed to make easy and often does not.

24 August 2026the day photographed here

Run by studentswith staff alongside

Open to the neighbourhoodvisitors came onto the campus

One visitor, one student, and the phone she already owns at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — One visitor, one student, and the phone she already owns

One table, one phone, one step at a time

There is no lecture and no projector. A student and a visitor sit together with a single handset between them and go through it slowly, until the thing is understood rather than merely done once with somebody else’s finger on the screen.

Making a call, and saving the number after it
Sending a message, and finding it again
Paying, and checking that the payment went

The help desk, set up and waiting at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — The help desk, set up and waiting

Going through it again, slowly at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — Going through it again, slowly

The hardest test of whether a child has learned anything

You have not understood a thing until you can teach it to someone who does not already know it, and who will not pretend to follow you out of politeness. A grandmother with a phone she cannot work is an honest examiner.

Explaining without jargon
Going back when the explanation did not land
Staying patient for as long as it takes

In photographs

Four students, one visitor, one screen at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — Four students, one visitor, one screen

Waiting at the desk at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — Waiting at the desk

A hand guided to the right key at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — A hand guided to the right key

Shown once, then done again alone at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — Shown once, then done again alone

Leaning in to see it properly at Birla Open Minds International School, Bhopal — Leaning in to see it properly

Come and see a Digital Gurukul day

Walk the campus, meet the teachers and see a class running before you decide anything.

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