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American India Foundation (AIF) is committed to improving the lives of India’s underprivileged, with a special focus on women, children and youth, through high-impact interventions in education, health, and livelihoods because poverty is multidimensional. Working closely with local communities, AIF partners with NGOs to develop and test innovative solutions and with governments to create and scale

sustainable impact. Founded in 2001in the aftermath of the devastating Gujarat earthquakeby the Indian diaspora in the USA, AIF has impacted the lives of 6.7 millionof India’s poor. Withoffices in New York and California, twelve chapters across the U.S., and India operations headquartered in Delhi NCR, AIF is transforming lives across 26 statesof India while addressing these issues on a regional, country, and international scale.

20/08/2026

Traditional vocational training often ends with a certificate. But real empowerment requires one more step: a direct bridge to the formal economy.

Through the Village Vistaar Project, supported by MSI, AIF’s Training-cum-Production Center (TPC) model embeds advanced skill training for women directly within live production hubs—turning technical learning into immediate, sustained earnings and self-reliance. The training leads to confidence and skill-building, both of which are put to work by orders from the market, leading to success and changing lives for a whole family.

The proof is in the stories. Facing sudden financial insecurity, Pooja rebuilt her path through advanced sewing training at the TPC. She now runs a thriving home enterprise earning ₹15,000+/month and mentors other women in her community.

Through visionary donor partnerships, we aren't just teaching trades—we are building an ecosystem where women step into leadership and transform their communities.

American India Foundation US

12/08/2026

Celebrating World Youth Skills Day with EXL

As the future of work evolves, preparing young people for sustainable careers requires more than technical knowledge alone. It calls for digital skills, adaptability, confidence, and continuous learning.

On World Youth Skills Day, conversations with aspiring youth at the EXL Prashast Centre reinforced this reality. Established by EXL in partnership with AIF, the Prashast Centre is a skill development hub that equips youth from underserved communities with market-relevant technology and professional skills, preparing them for opportunities in today's rapidly changing job market.

The program combines IT and AI training, digital productivity tools, workplace readiness, mentorship, industry exposure, and placement support, creating a pathway from learning to employment. Over the coming year, the Centre will support 625 youth in building careers in technology-enabled sectors and achieving greater economic mobility.

The future belongs to those who can learn, adapt, and grow. Investing in youth skills today is investing in a stronger workforce and a more inclusive tomorrow.

07/08/2026

An award for education. A recognition of systems that keep children learning.

We're proud to share that the American India Foundation's Learning and Migration Program (LAMP) has received the Silver Award at the CSR Times
Awards 2026, selected from 189 nominations nationwide in recognition of its contribution to building an .

For more than two decades, LAMP has addressed one of India's most complex education challenges: ensuring that children from families affected by seasonal distress migration are able to stay in school, continue learning, and build a stronger future. Working alongside governments, teachers, communities, and local institutions, the program has helped transform fragmented interventions into a systems-led approach that improves access, strengthens foundational learning, reinforces school governance, and keeps children connected to education even as migration patterns disrupt their lives.

Today, LAMP has reached over 1.7 million children across 17 States and Union Territories and more than 5,500 villages, creating community-owned models that strengthen public education systems in some of India's most migration-prone regions. Its impact has also been recognized globally, with LAMP named among HundrED's 100 most impactful and scalable education innovations for 2026, affirming that locally rooted, systems-driven solutions can influence education far beyond the communities where they begin.

We are honored to receive this recognition at the 13th National CSR & ESG Summit, organized by CSR Times, in the presence of Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Hon'ble Union Minister for Culture & Tourism.

This recognition belongs to every teacher, community volunteer, School Management Committee member, education official, government partner, donor, and AIF colleague who has worked to ensure that migration does not determine a child's opportunity to learn.

👏Congratulations to the entire LAMP team on this well-deserved milestone.

29/07/2026

Every generation prepares young people for the world it knows. Ours must prepare them for a world that is still being invented.

The World Economic Forum estimates that nearly 59% of the global workforce will require new skills or reskilling by 2030. The pace of technological change is redefining industries faster than education systems have traditionally evolved, making one question increasingly urgent: how do we prepare young people for opportunities that do not yet exist?

The answer is unlikely to lie in adding more technology to classrooms alone. It lies in creating learning environments where technology becomes a medium for exploration, where experimentation is part of learning, and where students begin to see themselves as contributors to the ideas and innovations that will shape tomorrow's economy.

This conviction has shaped AIF's Digital Equalizer program for over two decades. Designed as a systems-strengthening initiative, the program works alongside state governments to embed experiential STEM learning within public education systems. Through STEM Innovation and Learning Centres, curriculum-aligned coding and robotics, teacher professional development, digital learning resources, and scalable hub-and-spoke models, Digital Equalizer is embedding experiential STEM learning within government school systems. Having reached over 9 million students, trained more than 247,000 teachers, and strengthened over 51,000 schools across 35 States and Union Territories, the program demonstrates how sustained public-sector partnerships can expand both the quality and reach of STEM education at scale.

Learn more about the program https://aif-india.org/our-programs/education/digital-equalizer/

26/07/2026

If STEM education had a referee, these would all be straight red cards 🟥⚽

India's aspiration to become a global innovation powerhouse will ultimately be realised by the strength of its human capital. Long before breakthrough technologies emerge, startups are founded, or research transforms industries, innovation takes root in classrooms that encourage curiosity, experimentation, analytical thinking, and the confidence to solve problems whose answers are yet to be discovered.

This makes the quality of a strategic national priority. It shapes the capabilities that will define India's competitiveness in an economy increasingly driven by AI, advanced manufacturing, clean technologies, and digital innovation. Expanding meaningful access to STEM is therefore about much more than improving learning outcomes. It is about widening the country's innovation pipeline and ensuring that talent, wherever it exists, has the opportunity to flourish.

At AIF, this belief underpins our Digital Equalizer program. Working in partnership with state governments, we are strengthening STEM education through STEM Innovation and Learning Centres, sustained teacher development, and technology-enabled learning ecosystems that encourage inquiry, creativity, and problem-solving in government schools.

The carousel highlights a few practices that deserve a red card. Which one would you add? Comment below

23/07/2026

"Robots are built by engineers."
That's what Ankush and Vivek believed.
Until they built one themselves.

Students at a government school, the two friends had always loved experimenting, but STEM, for them, meant diagrams in textbooks, cardboard models, and memorizing concepts for exams. Building something real or imagining a future as engineers felt far beyond reach.

That changed when Ericsson India partnered with AIF to establish a STEM Innovation and Learning Center (SILC) in their school through the Digital Equalizer Program.

During one session on motors and mechanics, Vivek asked a simple question:

"Can we make something that moves and talks like a person?"

That question became a project.

Together, they experimented with motors, gears, wiring, and circuits. The robot toppled over, the motors failed, and the connections came loose. They started over—again and again. With guidance from their teachers, every setback became another lesson in testing, troubleshooting, and improving.

The breakthrough came when they successfully integrated a Bluetooth module, allowing the robot to respond through a mobile phone. More importantly, it changed how they saw themselves.

They no longer viewed engineering as something other people did. They had become young innovators themselves. For their peers, this meant a new level of inspiration.

Through its partnership with AIF, Ericsson India is enabling more than 12,500 students to access hands-on STEM learning that transforms curiosity into confidence and classrooms into spaces where the next generation of innovators can imagine, build, and lead.

If you could go back to one classroom moment, what would it be?

20/07/2026

For persons with , entry into the workforce is often determined less by skill and more by how hiring systems are structured.

Processes such as application screening, interviews, and recruiter interactions rely heavily on verbal communication, creating barriers that are rarely accounted for.

The result is a consistent drop-off at the point of entry. Qualified candidates are excluded by systems that do not accommodate different modes of communication. This challenge affects millions of people; according to the World Health Organization, nearly 63 million people in India live with significant hearing impairment, yet employability pathways remain largely unadapted to support their participation.

Sandhya, a 23-year-old from Bengaluru, experienced this gap firsthand. Despite completing her education, access to employment remained limited. Communication barriers during hiring processes, combined with financial pressures at home, narrowed her options further.

Her entry point came through AIF implemented and Wells Fargo supported Employability and Life Skills program designed for youth with disabilities. The program combined workplace readiness, digital literacy, interview preparation, and structured employer linkages, with adaptations that made the learning and placement process accessible.

Through sustained mentoring and placement support, Sandhya secured a role at Reliance Trends. She now earns independently and contributes to her household, marking a shift from exclusion at the hiring stage to active participation in the workforce.

Her journey reflects a broader pattern. When skilling and hiring systems are designed with accessibility in mind and connected directly to employment pathways, participation improves. The question for employers is not whether inclusion is possible, but whether hiring systems are structured to enable it.

Wells Fargo

15/07/2026

India's future workforce is sitting in today's classrooms.

As the country advances towards Viksit Bharat 2047 and Net Zero 2070, demand for skills in artificial intelligence, digital technologies, and the green economy is expected to grow significantly. Yet access to the learning opportunities that build these capabilities remains deeply uneven, particularly for children in underserved communities and government schools.

The theme of this year's , Skills for a Shared Future, recognizes an important reality: preparing young people for the future requires more than teaching science, mathematics, or coding. It calls for nurturing curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills that enable them to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

A shared future, however, can only be built when access to these opportunities is shared as well.

India's National Education Policy 2020 recognizes this shift. The challenge now is ensuring that future-ready learning reaches every child, regardless of geography, gender, or socioeconomic background.

Since 2004, AIF's Digital Equalizer (DE) program has worked to bridge this gap by strengthening STEM education in government schools and expanding access to technology-enabled learning. In partnership with state and district education departments, DE builds STEM learning ecosystems through digital infrastructure, teacher capacity building, and experiential learning opportunities that expose students to coding, robotics, computational thinking, innovation challenges, and emerging technologies.

By equipping students with the skills and confidence to navigate an AI- and green-powered economy, DE is helping ensure that the future of work is not determined by where a child is born, but by the opportunities they have to learn, participate, and shape the future they inherit.

has reached 9.02 million children, trained over 247,000 teachers in STEM and technology-enabled pedagogy, and strengthened learning across 51,441 government schools.

14/07/2026

Our community overwhelmingly identified and fluency as the skill that will define the

The results aren't surprising. Around the world, employers are rethinking the capabilities they value most. Technical knowledge remains important, but adaptability, digital confidence, problem-solving, and continuous learning have become equally critical in an economy shaped by AI and rapid technological change.

The greater challenge, however, is not predicting the skills of tomorrow. It is ensuring that access to those skills is not determined by geography, income, or circumstance.

India is home to one of the world's largest populations, yet the transition from education to employment remains deeply uneven. The Economic Survey 2024–25 reports that only 8.25% of graduates are employed in roles aligned with their qualifications, while many remain underemployed despite years of formal education. At the same time, credible reports from Google and the Asian Development Bank, found that only one in five young people in India has ever participated in an AI-skilling program—highlighting the widening gap between technological progress and equitable access to future-ready skills.

For organizations working in workforce development, this represents more than a skills challenge. It is an opportunity challenge.

Preparing young people for the future of work requires more than short-term training. It demands industry-aligned curricula, digital fluency, workplace competencies, employer partnerships, and clear pathways from learning to livelihoods.

This is the approach that underpins AIF's Market Aligned Skills Training (MAST) program. By integrating AI skills and tools in our learning modules, career counseling, workplace readiness sessions, and direct employer engagement, MAST continues to empower youth in career progression beyond creating 549,978 employment opportunities.

One of those young professionals is Khushboo. After completing AIF's Business Process Management training, she secured employment as a Territory Sales Officer—a reminder that workforce development is ultimately measured not by certificates awarded, but by careers launched.

As the global economy continues to evolve, the question is no longer whether AI will reshape the future of work. It already has. The question is whether the opportunities created by that transformation will be accessible to everyone.

Address

74, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-III
Delhi
10020

Telephone

+911244551850

Website

https://aif-india.org/

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