In this episode of the EdexLive Podcast by The New Indian Express, educator and innovator Shashank Mane shares how design thinking, robotics, and curiosity-driven learning are shaping the next generation of creators.
From launching satellites to winning global competitions, discover how students are rewriting the future of education.
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Shashank Mane is an educator and innovator shaping the future of learning at Chaman Bhartiya School, Bangalore. As the Design Technology and Innovation Facilitator, Shashank blends robotics, AI, and design thinking to empower students as creators, not just learners. His work stands at the intersection of creativity, technology, and wellbeing
5 Things We Loved About Shashank’s Story:
1. Curiosity-Driven, Project-Based Learning Over Rote Memorisation
Shashank emphasises the shift from traditional textbook learning to inquiry-based, hands-on education. His teaching philosophy centers around critical thinking, curiosity, and real-world problem solving, enabling students to move beyond passive learning and apply knowledge meaningfully.
2. Design Thinking and Iteration as Core Educational Tools
The design process—empathise, ideate, prototype, test, and iterate—is central to how students tackle challenges, as seen in impactful projects like the Gel Charan water wheel. Failure isn’t discouraged but treated as a natural, celebrated part of the learning process.
3. Environment Shapes Engagement and Innovation
The school's open classrooms, writable surfaces, natural lighting, and modular furniture create an atmosphere that fosters freedom, collaboration, and creativity. The design of learning spaces is as intentional as the curriculum itself.
4. Early Exposure to Technology and Global Experiences Builds Confidence
From robotics and AI labs starting in Grade 3 to international exchange programs (Russia, Europe) and NASA competitions, students are exposed early to cutting-edge tech and global challenges—transforming passive learners into innovators with purpose.
5. Values and Social Impact are Integrated into Innovation
Beyond academic or technical excellence, the school promotes service-based learning (CAS) where students build solutions for real societal needs—like the smart blind stick for the visually impaired—instilling empathy, responsibility, and purpose alongside innovation.
Our Conversation With Shashank:
Soundarya (Host): It's an absolute pleasure to have you here. Let's jump right in, shall we? So my first question is, can you describe a little bit about your early learning days? You know, how was school like for you, and what part of those methods do you continue to use and what do you think needs adaptation over time?
Shashank Mane: So my early education was more traditional textbook learning. So what really struck me is some rare moments where I started exploring and asking questions, which went out of the script. So these experiences taught me how crucial curiosity is. So over time I realized that passive learning doesn't prepare students for real challenges at all.
So that's why my teaching today focuses on critical thinking. More of project based learning. So I have adapted over the years with design thinking and tech integration into the classrooms. So mainly what I feel is if you have the curiosity and if you give the students the structure and freedom, you can see them flourish.
But when we used to study, it used to only be copy and paste from the textbook, which doesn't work out today.
Soundarya (Host): Absolutely. So now with your experience in I-B-D-P-M-Y-P and Innovation first, could you please explain what that is before we go into the second part of the question?
Shashank Mane: So, IBDP or MYP is mainly about learning through inquiry and reflection, researching about the problem. So you are my customer. What problem are you facing? You're sitting on a chair. The chair is not ergonomically designed. You can't sit on a chair for a long time. You get stressed, you get back pain. So as MYP students, they consider that as a problem. And when they start solving your problem, they go on with something called a design process.
First the ideate, then they empathize, then they come up with creating prototypes. Then they do something called iteration. Iteration is nothing but redesigning the product. What good can be modified? What else can be modified? It's not that once you create a product, it's done. You have to keep iterating it to such an extent that every day you can modify the product.
So that is why in MYP or IBDP, we don't say any product is perfect. Even the perfect product can be. Modified can be improved. So MYP is more about solving world problems. So that's why we asked students to identify problems which matchups to the United Nations. Sustainable goals. Recently, if you see, one of our students worked upon something called as a water rollup. So the United does sustainable goals was water and sanitation. So I gave them complete one month to identify the problem. So then after a month, they came up and told us, sir, we have identified a problem. Even today in India, women fetch water on their head through large distances in remote areas, but after the age of 40, they developed something called a musculoskeletal disorders, which is the problem of the vertebrates, and they cannot walk.
They started working on that, and after the second month completed, they came up with a solution to it. The solution was a water wheel, and they named it as Gel Charan. This water wheel was developed in a way that a woman can fetch about 45 liters of water, and she can just push it. The students had to go through all the stages of design thinking here.
First they did research, then they did something called prototyping, and then the last cycle is evaluation. What went right, what went wrong? After they developed the water roller, when they started testing on the field, they encountered one more problem. The water roller used to get punctured with the gravels on the road through the iteration process.
What they did was they enveloped the complete drum with tires, and then the project became a huge success, and very recently, last month, IBTP, the IB website has featured our Project J Charan on their website and we are getting 3000 US dollars from them to take up this project to the next level. They felt that this project is a truly.
Memorable project. Yeah. But that's how the students can change the world.
Soundarya (Host): Now, what role does failure and iteration play in the
process?
Shashank Mane: No idea is a good idea or a bad idea. That is what we feel. We treat every idea as a prototype. If a child comes and tells us, sir, this is my idea, we will never discourage him. Every idea is a prototype for us. We don't want perfection, but we empathize more on iteration. So let us say he's prototyping, so as he's prototyping something, he can start reflecting parallel. That reflection when it comes to us, we keep giving feedback based on that feedback they can modify. Failure isn't just accepted, it's expected and celebrated.
Soundarya (Host): So the freedom to make your own mistake and the freedom to treat every mistake as an opportunity to be better. So now, um, talking about design learning spaces. Now I've seen pictures of the school. It's stunning. It's truly, it reminds me of some of the music schools that I have been doing. You know, it's not the brick buildings, it's, it's more vibrant. What goes through your mind when you are trying to make a space interactive and inviting with details that enhance the learning experience?
Shashank Mane: So basically at Chaman Baria School, if you see the school, we have open classroom. The classrooms do not have walls. The reason is very simple. We have to teach our students to be expressive, not to be inside the four walls. So that was the basic concept. So if you are talking about the design of the school, you know, we actually feel about flow, flexibility, and feel while designing.
The space should invite moment collaboration and reflection. At Chairman Baria, we use writeable surfaces and we have modular furniture. We have dedicated maker space labs to stimulate interaction. And if you see the lighting, lighting places psychological factor in our school. So as in when the student enter the school.
He feels that he is an innovator. See now we have smart boards, which most of the many places we have this places where you can write, write on the screen, or write on the walls. We have certain places where they can go and write on the walls. So that's what I was talking about. And different places, you know, have different type of, you know, lightings and we have given more preference for natural lighting too.
And if you would see the innovation lab. It's world class. If you enter inside, you feel like innovating something. Basically. If you go to any traditional school, we see a number of classes. We don't get to know what other class students are doing, but in our school, you know, students are just lying down on the floor and doing something.
You know, everyone sees students what they're doing. So that's freedom. You know? See, in this generation, it's all about freedom. You give them a structure. Parallel. You give them freedom and take my words, they will not disappoint. I have seen it.
Soundarya (Host): That is the magic combination, isn't it? How do global exposure programs, for example, your trips to NASA and you'd also I think, uh, had this kind of panel like Shark Tank where you had invited investors.
To come and see the projects of students. So is there a particular trip or a particular project that stands out in terms of lasting and that was course apart from the wheel
Shashank Mane: Because we are the top innovative school of India, we also believe our students should have global exposure. So that is why we started something called as Technology exchange programs, and the first country we selected was Russia.
It was not easy for us during the time of war, but. We had 24 children who actually went to the technology exchange program. Why we selected Russia.
Look, everyone talks about NASA. The pioneers of space technology are Russians. So we took them to the Cosmonauts Museum in Russia. We took them to submarines in St. Petersburg. We took them to Great Heritage museums. We showed the culture. Once they came back, I saw a set of students already started working on submarine and within a fraction of almost 12 days or something, they developed a prototype of a submarine and they tested it in a school swimming pool. So amazing to see the submarine going underwater, the principal of buoyancy.
So very well explained. That's amazing. You know, so that's how. Students get transformed, giving them global exposure. They allowed us to places where astronauts are trained. They showed us the capsules of the first dog, which went to Space Leica. They showed us the Uri, ging capsule, actual capsules.
The students were, you know, amazed to see it. The next whole month I saw them only talking about their experience, and this year we are planning to go to Europe. Already. We have 64 students.
We're going to the Euro Space Center, a setup, uh, called cern. It's a nuclear facility, and in Euro Space Center, our students will become the astronaut for the day.
They experience zero gravity in every trip. You see some students getting transformed. Just two months back, uh, we had a set of students who competed for Mission to mass competition that was organized by NASA. It's a very big competition. Almost a hundred participants throughout the world are students, four students, the competitors from our school.
The problem statement was, you need to create a habitat on Mars. Out of all these hundred teams, we have one Competitor in first place, and our team was named Team Solids. Now, they have invited us to present our ideas in front of NASA officials. In the University of Southern California and we also, we don't feel that only Ask school students should excel on Jan 9th, which is our founder's day.
We have something called a Stinker Fest, one of the biggest technology competition. We have Shark Tank, we have Sumo Robot Competition, Drone race, we have Lego League, we have hackathons. We invite students throughout India. They come in and participate here and you know, for Shark Tank, we call upon many business people who can come and invest on projects. I take this opportunity to invite all the schools throughout India to take part in Tinker Fest, which is on Jan 9th 2026.
Soundarya (Host): Absolutely. Now, in a highly competitive environment, how proactive do you think schools should be in addressing. The emotional and social wellbeing of students. Are there strategies you've seen work particularly well?
You know, in stabilizing emotional and mental wellbeing in kids?
Shashank Mane: So academic excellence is meaningless without emotional health is what I feel. But in our school we have a school counselor who keeps check off the emotional wellbeing of every student. She's so much open that any student has any problem, they can reach out to her anytime without any appointments.
Soundarya (Host): I mean, I would say that a lot of schools, or the majority of education systems are still yet to think in that direction. My question is that eventually, when there are standardized tests, how do these students level it out in the real world? Will they have to take these kind of examinations later if they want to be an engineer or a doctor, but the model of learning is more textual. So how do you bridge that gap in the different models of learning?
Shashank Mane: I can tell that students can implement something called an hybrid model, where where you integrate physics, chemistry, and all these tech related subjects. And create some interdisciplinary lessons where all these subjects can lead up to one single project where while the student is creating the project, he learns all these concepts.
It should be more of learning and doing, you know, if it's just learning, it doesn't work out in this generation. It has to be more of hybrid model where it's more of. Getting outside the comfort zone. Most of the schools don't want to do it is they are comfortable with this. They want don't want to do something alien.
So we have gone out of the comfort zone and we are actually enjoying it.
Soundarya (Host): at the cutting edge of AI in education. When do you think is the right time for us to introduce AI to concepts of students? And how do you make it both accessible? And engaging at the same time where they're able to use their own creativity and not misuse, uh, AI in general.
Shashank Mane: So in our school, we have a dedicated artificial intelligence lab. We have a humanoid robot inside. We have automatic lights, you know, that's all AI. So now you are asking me at what age do we start? We actually start from grade three, from scratch based coding. It's called picto Blocks, teaching the child coding.
Through blocks, basically. There are different kinds of coding for elders. We teach C+, and then there's one more coding language for the Python. So for kids, you know, it's very hard for them to digest C+ Python. We actually teach them through something called scratch coding or block coding. It's very easy.
There are only five, six blocks for a code they have to just drag and drop for the code to run. So what kind of projects do these kids do? They do something called as image recognition. Voice recognition codes. These kind of codes they do so that they understand what is AI.
So gradually we take them up as they, maybe once they read grade five or grade six, they start making real time artificial depth projects.
Very recently, they did a self-driving car. One more group of students. They're doing a high-end project of ai, which was inspired by the forest fire in Australia. They want to do something which can detect the forest fire in prior, they have created drones, which actually does the surveillance, which has thermal cameras in it.
They're working on it.
Soundarya (Host): How do you use Lego in your classroom to teach design and robotics? If you do, and can you share a story where Lego truly changed? The way a student approached creativity.
Shashank Mane: So unfortunately, we restrict Lego up to grade two in our school only for younger kids. But Lego also plays an important role. There are certain kids, you know who don't like programming. They don't like big blocks too for them. What we do, we actually teach them to create robots using blocks, Lego blocks. I observed it in one of the student.
He was not at all interested in. Block based coding. Once we introduced this Lego bricks to him, when he started making robots out of bricks, you know, and when the arms moved, the legs moved of the robot, he started analyzing how the code also would work, and now the same student wants to learn coding.
So Lego has actually initiated the student to learn coding.
Soundarya (Host): If you could reimagine a future of education in India based on your experience, what would it look like and what principle would you want every school to adopt to make a real difference?
Shashank Mane: If a student is curious and if a student comes to a physics teacher or a chemistry teacher, and if he tells his, ma'am, I want to work on this, I'm curious about it.
70 to 80% of them will not motivate the child. Because they would not have the setup, nor would they have the knowledge. It's very important for us to motivate the child. If you don't motivate, you know, the student will go back to not being curious. And moreover, the principle. What I would follow is learning by doing.
So that's how going forward, we have to adapt to education right.
Soundarya (Host): Beyond, uh, the education and beyond being prepped for, uh, world. And what do you think are certain value systems or how is the school essentially trying to build certain values in the students? And besides curiosity.
Shashank Mane: we have something called a cas Creative Action Service. You need to create something. You need to act for this, and you need to serve the society. You create something. Recently we created a blind stick.
We took some of our kits to a blind school. We got to know that the sticks, what these people are using is of no use and they still falling gutter. The kits came back and they converted the complete blind stick to smart blind stick using ultrasonic sensors.
When we went and gave them a sample, they were so happy seeing the advancement, you know. So that's service. Don't be selfish in building products for yourself, but for the society, the world.
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