Techie devotes life to social work
By Shibi Kiran

The booming IT-ITES industry in India has empowered many Tech Specialists to drop out and pursue their passions.  But few are more inspiring than IIT Kanpur and Delhi trained Engineer Lalit Pant who gave up a lucrative six figure income in USA to return to Dehradun, India and do social work in the form of teaching children maths, programming and IT. His pay cut? Almost 100% !

Techgoss (TG): Tell us about your Educational Qualification? What kind of IT have you studied? Which are companies (IT or any other) you worked with?
Lalit Pant: I did my B. Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, and my M. Tech, also in Chemical Engineering, from IIT Delhi.

I have no formal training in IT. I learned everything that I know about IT by myself - at home and at work.

I spent the first six years of my career as a software engineer in India, most of them at TCS (areas: Graphics, OSs, and Networking). I then worked in the US for around eleven years. The first few were with a startup in Pittsburgh, doing AI work in the area of agent technology. While there, I got to write a Prolog interpreter in Java, and to integrate it with Jess – to create the (forward-backward chaining) core of the agents that we were developing. Then I moved to Dallas, where I worked for many years at Sterling Commerce (areas: security, protocols, concurrent architecture, data transfer). The time there was intense – I shipped a couple of products as the sole developer, and was tech-lead for several more. I spent a year at Valtech, doing really interesting work using agile methodologies.

TG: How did you get interested in Social Work? Was it easy or difficult to convince your family members about your passion of making social work a full time occupation? Who are your role models in social work / people you look up to as role models?
Lalit: With the work that I am currently doing in the area of Education, I have taken something that I love to do (computer programming), combined it with something that I want to do (re-learn Math and teach), and tried to make it meaningful in my social setting. This works out well for everyone involved – the children I teach, the schools I work with, and me.

My wife and the rest of my family have been very supportive of my work. My family also has a long tradition of social work (Check out reacha.org for more information).

I don't particularly believe in role models - but it's good to take inspiration from the positive qualities that you admire in people. More importantly, though, you need to look within yourself and around, figure out what gives you joy, and then focus on doing this activity for as long as you can (and if this activity positively impacts the humans around you, you will find that the joy factor associated with the activity is multiplied manyfold).

This has to be a personal journey for everyone, which involves experimentation and temporary failures, joys and sorrows, ups and downs. But you have to undertake this journey for yourself. If people that you admire help in pointing at possible journeys, that's totally fine. But you have to walk your own path (and this could well be a path taken by many others; that's not important. The important thing is that this also be your own path - for the right reasons).

TG:  What is the pay cut like from working in USA to social work in India?  When did you give up your tech job?
Lalit: The pay cut is almost hundred percent! I quit my job in 2008.

TG:  Was there a trigger point after which you decided that you would rather pursue your passion than a tech job?
Lalit: No, there wasn't a particular trigger point. It was a gradual building up that took its course.

TG:  What has the journey been like?  What were the milestones of your current project?
Lalit: The journey has been fun, exciting, and adventurous!

The first milestone occurred when I started teaching at Himjyoti, a school in Dehradun for bright, underprivileged girls.

The second milestone was the initial release of Kojo, my learning environment for children. You can find more information about Kojo at this link . I keep doing regular updates of Kojo, and these are available for free from the Kojo web-page above.

The next milestone was the launch of The Kalpana Center, a place where children learn Computer Programming, Math, Information Technology etc. The main tool used at the Kalpana Center is Kojo.

And the journey goes on...

TG:  Do you have enough funding?  Who are the like minded people who assist you?
Lalit: I am doing all of this work using my own savings, and am currently not looking for funding.

People who assist me include like minded programmers and educationists from around the world. You can find a list of these people within Kojo - on the Help - About screen.

REACHA (www.reacha.org), an NGO run by my father and brother, is a big supporter.

TG: Any advice you would like to give to our techie readers who aspire to do something in your sector?
Lalit: There are two kinds of people who make the world go around – the creators and the maintainers (there are also the destroyers, and they, too, have an important role to play! But we won't talk about them today).

Both roles are important, but in India we seem to attach more importance to maintainers (in the form of managers!), and there's a tendency to want to become a manager as soon as you can, especially when the environment around you also wants to push you in that direction.

If you have creative instincts inside you, my advise to you is to resist the pressure to become a manager. Instead, create while you can! Create at work. But also create at home - set aside ten minutes every day to build something that gives you joy. You will find that soon, your personal creation will take on a life of its own, and will open up interesting avenues for you.

TG: How can people help?
Lalit: If you think you might want to contribute to the work that I am doing, head on over to the Kojo forum and start a thread

TG: How far do you think software and virtual learning can replicate real learning systems (teacher to student communication)?
Lalit: Software based learning is meant to supplement traditional learning. Nothing can beat a good teacher, but the right kind of software can help a teacher become much more effective (especially in subjects like Math).

In situations where qualified teachers are not available, software learning environments can still be pretty useful, especially when coupled with child-friendly learning material – and with well meaning adults acting as facilitators.