Galileo Galilei wore many hats. Being a true polymath, he was an astronomer, physicist, engineer, artist and more. When he looked through the telescope one evening, he predicted that the shadows on the moon are actually mountains because he was trained in a technique called Chiaroscuro which involves shading in a way to depict levels of elevation. Invariably, being an artist made this prolific Italian a better scientist. To drive home this point of interdisciplinary studies, Abhilash Joseph and Apurva Ayyagari got together to start Leo & Mike. "Leo stands for Leonardo da Vinci and Mike stands for Michelangelo, two of history's greatest polymaths," explained COO and Co-founder, Ayyagari. "We need to expose children to different fields so that they can see the connections between two seemingly discreet or distinct things, just like Galileo did," Joseph, who is the CEO and co-founder, tells us. They do this through independent workshops and their biggest one is coming up next, the Winter Camp.
"To be held across four different locations across Hyderabad, this two-day camp for children between the ages of 9 and 14 will include workshops on stop-motion animation, 3D printing and robotic olympics," informs Rajvardhan Agarwal, Head of Implementation. For every 25 students, there will be two facilitators at this camp which starts from December 22 and goes on till January 13. The seats are already filling up, we are told, so it would do you well to book a slot right away.
So, how does Leo & Mike enable kids to connect the dots? Not only do they employ a hands-on approach, but they also have their own proprietary learning system called SOLE, developed by in-house experts, like Ayyagari, who has worked in the K-12 STE(A)M and design-based education field for over six years. SOLE stands for Student Optimised Learning and Experience. They have also worked with consultants from diverse fields like environmentalist, technologist, Computer Science experts and more for this. "This is a full framework we have come up with after extensive Research and Development. It borrows from fields like child, behavioural and cognitive psychology, gaming and others," informs Joseph. The aim is to make learning relevant and accessible to every child in the country.
Right now, they may be guilty of being slightly expensive (but worth the money), they eventually plan to take these workshops to the masses and even work with government schools. The good news is that schools are already approaching them and asking them to conduct workshops. And why wouldn't they? Their workshops don't just have tangible outcomes for children, it also has intangible ones, like learning to solve problems and communicating better. "We want kids to start early so that they can become productive citizens who are excited about learning," concludes Ayyagari.
For more on them, click on leomike.co
