The Young Tinker Foundation builds “Skill Consciousness” and promotes “Problem-Solving through Hands-On STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) among high school students. We focus on empowering students, particularly those from rural and underprivileged backgrounds, to ideate, prototype, and develop enterprises. Young TinkerSpace and TOW (Tinker on Wheels) are key initiatives driving this impact.
Why the name “Young Tinker”?
The term “Young Tinker” reflects a youthful mindset—someone who is free and curious—and “tinker” refers to a problem solver, not just a thinker.
Founder
Mr. Anil Pradhan – born and brought up at 42 Mouza, Cuttack – as a school student, used to cycle 12 km every day to reach school sine there were none in his area. His cycle would bear the brunt pf uneven roads and as a result would give him trouble. The chain on his cycle was a frequent offender that would rust and act up. He would fix it in his own ingenious way (and which doesn’t mean oiling the chain). It was during these moments that the 23-year-old feels his journey of innovating started.
Then came various school projects and later admission to Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT – formely UCE) and their robotics society helped Anil to move a step closer to innovation. Not only the college was an enabler, but the senior of robotics society helped him a lot. College put to test Mr. Anil Pradhan’s capabilities and he aced every challenge that came his way. He made news for being a part of the team that built the first student’s satellite in Asia, to monitor the Hirakud Dam (the longest man-made dam in the world). He has also helped design a robot that could climb electric poles and do tasks otherwise deemed too dangerous for humans.
In October 2014, during his third year of engineering, Mr. Anil Pradhan started an innovation school named – International Public School For Rural Innovation in a village Baral in Odisha, with just three students, with the aim of educating and bringing forward the rural areas of our country. A resident of Baral himself, Anil had moved to Bhopal when he was about 11 owing to his father’s transferable job. Despite studying in an English medium school in Odisha, he was denied admission in one of the convent school of Bhopal because of his average English-speaking skills. This was his first encounter with the gap between the quality of education available in rural and urban India.
Keeping in mind all the experiences encountered as a child, he focused in making his school much more compatible for its students. Although the school follows the same syllabus and curriculum as the Odisha’s Board of Secondary Education, it employs innovation and technology in its methodology. It is a first such school in Odisha which focuses on STEM education and has implemented alternative education and experiential learning in its teaching methods. Since then the school has been actively spreading experimental learning to poor rural and urban children and teachers in India through programs which involves hands-on learning methodologies.