Digital Swaraj Fellowship: Revisiting the Journey of DEF’s Flagship Programme
Osama has been a good friend, guide, mentor, and a well-wisher to me for the last nine years. He is a visionary with 20 years of experience in transforming the lives of people and discussing the importance of digital in our lives. He saw that in the coming years, digital would become an integral part of our lives, and communities need to be empowered to use it effectively. We connect on big ideas, visions, and dreams.
Last year, when I met Osama, he shared his dream of creating a learning space for young people to dive deeper into the vast ocean of digital. He has been working in the domain of digital empowerment of communities for the last 20 years. During that conversation, we discussed the pressing need for young minds to work in the digital domain. All major educational institutions teaching social work and development studies cover socio-economic issues of our times, but there is hardly any educational institute that has a specific curriculum or program teaching about the intersection between digital and society.
As a dreamer and passionate educator who loves creating spaces for young people to learn and grow as social change leaders, I instantly connected with his dream. Based on my personal experience, I know how much the world has changed because of the influence of digital technology. It is impacting our lives, our value systems, our politics, our economy, and our society. It is everywhere, and we cannot avoid it or be ignorant about its impact. This realisation led me to collaborate with DEF again after 2015. In 2015, it was Osama who supported my dream, and now it was my turn to support him.
Over the past year, we have successfully completed the first batch of the fellowship, nurturing seven young hearts both intellectually and personally.
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