“Mom, send that folder on the desktop with the name ‘Office Project’ to my office email urgently. Or my boss will throw me out.”
“But how do I switch on the PC”
And I gave up on trying explaining to her on how to attach the file to an email and send it to me. I had just shown her all this last night and she forgot it the next day. When I returned home in the evening, I burst out my entire office anger on her and skipped dinner.
That’s when my best friend Parth called me up and vented out my anger on him as well.
But I don’t know if you call it a sheer co-incidence, he had gone through something similar last week. The entire episode did not let me sleep peacefully that night (obviously I was hungry as well).
Later that week, I went for a seminar with the thought still following me.
“Sell what society needs!” urged the speaker at the seminar where I had my eureka moment.
“Despite the world being online and technology driven, our parents were not comfortable even switching on a PC”.
Conceived by Parth and me, eParent is a “gift to our parents”.
This is the story of Parvez Jesani and Parth Parikh who started eParent around a year back.
eParent is a customized computer literacy programme for housewives, middle aged and senior citizen. We send trained instructors, including female instructors for women clients, to their homes. We are very flexible with ehe medium of instruction, timings and individual learning plans which acts as a major differntiator. By imparting the basics of computers “from scratch” – switching on the PC, using the keyboard and mouse – and Internet- related utilities such as Google, email, Facebook and YouTube, we do not want eLiteracy to be barrier any further.
Old age or stay-at-home-mother loneliness loses some of its sting when social networking brings people closer to family and friends.
Our intent is to develop a model to impart much-needed computer literacy to housewives, senior citizens, etc., as well as generate employment for students, housewives and the needy, thereby helping both sections to become independent.
Piloted in June 2013, eParent has covered over 100 batches across Mumbai so far, training over 150 housewives and senior citizens while providing part-time employment to 15-20 teachers. And the journey has just began.
We are not doing this as a prime time venture to earn our bread and butter but just a social giveback. Your feedback would be highly appreciated to help us get the ball rolling.
You could connect with me @simply_hardik or read some of my posts at www.simplysoch.wordpress.com
P.s: I have joined eParent recently. And I am loving it 😉
Darshan Bhambiru
Wonderful!!
Do let me know if you see me being of any assistance in this in any way, am comfortable doing this since have been doing it for quite some time too now (almost 18 years), on Phone, Remote access or classroom or in a Workshop as well, have also managed and maintained a Wiki for something similar for a closed group too if you need anything on those lines for Knowledge base preparation and reference also can assist in documentation and technical papers/material or testing and Practical experiences with regards to the various OS, browsers, Productivity applications and other related software and mail clients etc either on PC Tabs or Mobile too, Expert (kind of 😉 as my friends tell me) in Windows (All flavors, Server/Client) Unix, Linux, Macintosh, SGI etc. Lets talk this out too if you feel this could help you and your team in any ways 🙂
Would just suggest getting a recognition from any of the approved courses which could allow you guys to provide a certificate for completion, you can get in touch with any of the Govt supported Certification agencies or also with the MS social wing and others too like Adobe, Apple, Open source associations supporting them likewise too
Good Luck to your new Endeavor Hardik!! Cheers!
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
whoa!!!
Sanket Rajadhyaksha
Believe it or not Hardik, I was thinking exactly about this last week while giving lessons to my parents on Facebook and Whatsapp. Was wondering about the possibility of a such a service.
Goodluck…It’s going to be a fun journey!
P.S. – Some notes I made about this idea. – Targeting senior citizen by tying up with clubs/gymkhana’s and hosting a session as a group. These clubs always invite such sessions that can help their members and will even subsidize it for them.
Pranay Airan
awesome !!
Tarun
In a way this idea will also help bridge generation gap and frustrations generated by this gap.
Guess what. There will be programs like ‘ Google hang out for Dadi Ma ke Nuskhe’ 😉
Hardik Shah
Thanks Darshan.
Helpful as always 🙂
Hardik Shah
🙂
Hardik Shah
Hey Sanket,
That seems like an awesome idea.
Thanks 🙂
Hardik Shah
Thanks 🙂
Hardik Shah
Hahaha – that would actually be so cool 🙂