• To make the children good creators rather than just consumers. They’d rather be designing video games rather than playing them, cooking a snack rather than eating it or designing their clothes rather than just wearing them
• To develop an attitude of actively searching for entrepreneurial opportunities that one can exploit
• To be comfortable leveraging all forms of technology to exploit that entrepreneurial opportunity

Towards the end, NRI Global Discovery School founded Discovery Launchpad, an ambitious program that offers comprehensive technology training and entrepreneurial exposure to our kids. The technology taught at the Discovery Launchpad include:

• Mobile phone programming empower kids to develop applications for Android phones
• Cisco Networking Academy program equip children to earn a Cisco Certified Networking Associate professional career certification before they finish their Grade 12
• Editing, digital photography, music and movies opens up professional opportunities in future in the media and entertainment industry or at the very least become a serious hobby
• Stanford FabLabs@School Prototyping enable children to give physical form to their abstract imagination as well as learn classroom concepts through hands-on experiences
• Embedded systems programming empower kids to learn to program anything that has a computer chip inside it – from microwave oven, TV, cars to even toys
• Robotics give exposure to this sunrise field of technology by learning to design hardware and software to work well together
• Scratch animation programming was designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is being used by schools all over the world to introduce kids as young as Grade 1 to the logic and methodology (rather than the exact syntax) of computer programming
• Star gazing opens up their developing minds and outsized imaginations to the nature of the cosmos, the realities of space travel and the possibilities of intelligent life in other worlds

Going hand-in-hand with the technology training will be Entrepreneurship training for each child. To paraphrase Harvard University President, Larry Summers, “We want NRI Global Discovery School students to create their own jobs rather than finding them”. Our final expectation from each child is that they start an entrepreneurial venture – however small or understated – in a field of their choice by the time they leave Grade 12.

This program will introduce children to the basic skills needed to run their own company. These will include basic accounting, people management and sales & marketing concepts.

The exposure that the Discovery Launchpad aspires to provide our children includes in-house and external workshops, guest lectures, access to a mentor network of experienced industry practitioners in various fields, industry internships and international partnerships. Such international partnerships will give an opportunity to children of NRI Global Discovery School to work on projects with children in partner schools in the US, Europe and the Far East.