VidhyaVision started in 2023 after a personal contrast between education in the United States and rural Rajasthan became impossible to ignore. What began with one school and coding sessions has grown into a broader platform for technology learning, AI education, volunteers, and industry mentorship.
Two classrooms, one pandemic
VidhyaVision was founded in 2023 by Shaurya Jat, who was born in Rajasthan, India, and moved to the United States when he was one. His family remained closely connected to rural Rajasthan, and both of his parents had studied in rural-school environments similar to the schools VidhyaVision works with today.
During COVID, his own school experience in the U.S. moved online relatively smoothly: laptops, Wi-Fi, digital assignments, and video calls were already available. Back in Rajasthan, that same transition exposed a very different reality. Many students did not have dependable computers, internet connectivity, or classroom technology to fall back on when physical classrooms closed.
Returning to Rajasthan after the pandemic made that contrast tangible. Students were no less curious. Teachers were no less committed. The difference was often the tools, exposure, and networks around them.
“I realized that talent was never what separated my classroom in America from a classroom in rural Rajasthan. Access did.”
The idea behind VidhyaVision
About the founder
Founder & Student Lead
Shaurya is a rising high school senior interested in computer engineering, artificial intelligence, and using technology to solve practical problems.
Born in Rajasthan and raised in the United States, he grew up with close ties to the rural communities where much of his extended family still lives. Seeing the difference in access to technology and online learning during COVID—and later seeing those challenges firsthand in Rajasthan—helped inspire him to start VidhyaVision.
Outside VidhyaVision, Shaurya builds software and machine-learning projects and volunteers with community organizations, contributing both technical skills—such as website and payment-system support—and hands-on service through food preparation and distribution. Those experiences continue to shape how he thinks about technology: not only as something to build, but as something that should be useful and accessible to people.
How the journey evolved
We started by trying to solve one concrete problem in one school. Each next step came from what students needed and what the technology landscape was becoming.
COVID
While our founder's classes in the U.S. moved online with laptops, internet access, and video calls, students around his extended family in rural Rajasthan often did not have an equivalent digital classroom to move into.
2023
Working with family, village leadership, and local community support, the first step was helping bring a Smart TV into a government school so teachers and students could reach learning resources beyond the blackboard and textbook.
2023–24
Our founder started teaching online coding sessions himself. Volunteers in India and the United States joined, allowing the model to reach more students and more schools.
AI ERA
As generative AI and machine learning became part of everyday technology, we expanded beyond coding to AI literacy, responsible AI use, digital skills, projects, robotics, and real-world problem solving.
TODAY
What began with our founder's father sharing his own journey from a rural school to a technology career has grown into a network of 15+ industry mentors and professionals who help students connect learning with real careers.
A story close to home
Both of Shaurya's parents studied in rural-school environments similar to the communities VidhyaVision serves today. His father's path later became especially relevant to the program: after beginning his education in that setting, he built a career in technology, including experience at Microsoft and Meta. When he began speaking with students as one of VidhyaVision's early mentors, his journey offered something different from a lecture—a starting point that felt familiar and a career path students could ask about directly.
Those early conversations helped shape VidhyaVision's mentorship model. Today, 15+ industry mentors and professionals with experience across Google, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, Walmart, Amazon, and startups have helped students explore technology, careers, problem solving, and the choices that shape a professional journey.
The goal is not to promise every student the same destination. It is to make more destinations visible.
What guides us
Technology matters when students can understand it, experiment with it, ask people about it, and connect it to problems they recognize in their own lives.
Work with educators and local communities rather than around them, adding technology exposure to the learning environment they already know best.
Keep programs responsive as technology changes—from coding foundations to AI, digital literacy, robotics, projects, and emerging tools.
Bring professionals into the learning experience so students can ask questions, hear real career journeys, and see paths that may otherwise feel distant.
Create a model where volunteers, families, schools, mentors, and supporters can each contribute what they know and expand the circle of opportunity.
The larger vision
Because our founder's family is rooted in farming, VidhyaVision is also exploring how the same principle could eventually support rural families beyond the classroom: using familiar tools such as smartphones and WhatsApp to make useful technology easier to reach.
Useful information
Weather, crop-market information, and timely digital resources.
Practical rural technology
Exploring ways technology can support buying, selling, planning, and small businesses.
These ideas represent areas we are exploring for the future, not services currently promised by VidhyaVision.
Where we are today
Still built around the same idea we started with: geography should not determine how close a student can get to knowledge, technology, or people who can inspire their future.