Inspiring Techie helps students
By Nina Mukherji

M.G. Jayaprakash, a software engineer working at IBM, has set up the Jai Hind Academy, an institute giving free tuitions to students who are weak in their studies. This techie is deeply passionate about preparing and guiding these youngsters towards a better life, and he feels a deep sense of achievement and pride every time one of his student’s does well and scores high marks.

Techgoss (TG): What do you do at IBM?
M.G. Jayaprakash (MGJ): I am a Senior Software Engineer at IBM. I was working on Lotus Notes -Java technology earlier. But now I am in a tech lead role handling quality of the project. I joined IBM in 2007 after completing my BE.

TG: What inspired you to get into this venture – setting up and running of a tuition institute?
MGJ: I drew my inspiration mainly from my parents. My father was from Magadi Taluk a very rural area.  Both my parents had to struggle quite a bit to complete their education.  I heard their stories while growing up and this inspired me greatly. Then again my mother started giving free tuitions to some of the neighbourhood children.  This also helped to show me the path that I should take.

TG: How and when did you get started?
MGJ: I was eager to get started and got into it when I was doing my BE itself. I took a loan of Rs.4 lakhs with my father’s help and constructed 4 classrooms above my house. The Jai Hind academy was thus born and we took in students from 8th to 12th standard.  The idea was to give tuitions to and lift up students who were doing poorly in their studies. We admitted students who were getting between 35%-50% marks only. Students getting higher marks are generally not given preference. The other criterion is admitting those who cannot afford to go to other institutes as it is free of cost here.

TG: Have any of your friends from other IT companies come forward to help you?
MGJ: Four of my closest friends work with me – Prakash, Bharath, Sasikiran and Naveen Kumar. Naveen is with Wipro and Prakash works at Mindtree. The other two are from non-IT backgrounds.  I am also proud to say that many of my school teachers like Ms.Vani Krishnaraj came forward to help me, and most of them do it for no fee at all. Totally we have 18 faculty members with us, and 14 are senior faculty members.

TG: How do you motivate the students? How do you get a student who is getting 35% to score 75% - 80%?
MGJ: We talk to them and counsel them. We also try to inspire them by giving our own examples telling them that if we - Naveen, Bharath, Sasikiran and I could do it, then they could do it too.  Naveen is a hot favourite among the students, they really look up to him and he is great at motivating them.

I tell them about my job with IBM, the good salaries and also opportunities to go abroad. We also tell them that they will get a lot of respect and recognition from people around them. We constantly instill these things in them and this motivates them to work much harder.

TG: Plans for the future?
MGJ: I would like fulfill my mother’s dream of setting up a really good school where students can study from start to finish. I hope and pray for this, let’s see where life takes us.

(Photo: M.G. Jayaprakash with his mother)

(If you want to assist Jayaprakash email him at prak1986@gmail.com)