Balaji Sampath (born 17 January 1973)[1] is an Indian educationist, scientist[2], and the founder and secretary of Association for India's Development - India chapter,[3][4] an India-based non-profit NGO that conducts science teaching and primary school programs for children to aid their educational development.[5] He is also the founder and CEO of Ahaguru, an educational online coaching startup that provides training courses on different subjects online.[6][7][8] He is also an author of science books for primary and higher level education.[2]
Personal life
Balaji was born in Chennai, India on 17 January 1973 into a family where both of his parents were government workers.[1][9] Because his parents were often transferred to different locations for their government jobs, as a child Balaji was exposed to a number of schools across India. He had difficulty in understanding scientific subjects due to "ineffective teaching". Early in life, he devised his own system of analysis and arriving at solutions.[9]
Balaji started his career as a volunteer for AID United States chapter from 1994 while he was doing his doctorate.[14] After completing his PhD degree, he returned to India to work full-time on social issues in 1997 and founded AID India.[1][15][16] He worked with the Centre for Ecology and Rural Development and the Peoples Science Movement on Health and Education Programs. Balaji organized Peoples Health assembly campaign in 2000 at a national level and began campaigning for better public education and access to healthcare, especially in the rural areas.[1]
AID India trains teachers in government schools with the goal of improving the quality of teaching, especially for science and mathematics by using innovative techniques and devising educational aid.[15] The mission of AID India is to empower socially disadvantaged sections of the society through socio-economic development programs, education, providing micro credit, and providing training in the areas of health, human rights and utilization of resources for income generation.[17]
In 2011, Balaji started Ahaguru.com, an online education portal to enhance science and math learning and problem-solving skills of middle and high school students. The startup, "a pioneer in online coaching", provides training courses completely online. It covers physics, chemistry and math for classes 7 to 12 for CBSE, NEET and JEE. The full year course is modelled like a classroom with teachers explaining concepts and showing how to solve different questions.[1][18][19][20]
