Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia addresses students and teachers at the launch of NXplorers
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia addresses students and teachers at the launch of NXplorers

A device for farmers to assess moisture in the soil.

Producing biogas from food and agricultural waste.

Or a smart drainage system that biologically treat sewage water.

What sets the innovations apart is that behind each one of them are children between the age of 14 to 19. You may have seen a glimpse of this at Shell’s Make the Future event in Chennai in December 2018 and now NXplorers has come to Delhi. 

Students, teachers, media and chief guest, Delhi’s Deputy Chief Minister Shri. Manish Sisodia gathered to launch NXplorers – Shell’s global Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education programme. The event held at the Rajendra Prasad Sarvodaya Vidyalaya at the President Estate in New Delhi aimed to equip the youth with tools and methodology that they may need to address complex challenges of the world.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia interacts with children about their NXplorer projects
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia interacts with children about their NXplorer projects

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Guest, Shri Manish Sisodia congratulated Shell and the Learning Links Foundation for launching the NXplorers initiative and giving an opportunity to students to identify complex problems in their areas and develop sustainable solutions. He said “The programme is in line with our focus on providing quality educational and developmental opportunities to students of government run schools. We need to encourage students to think out of the box, think local and instill a thinking to challenge the existing and go beyond the textbook to find solutions beyond the obvious”

While the programme launched in Delhi, some of the projects already being carried out by students across the country include: biogas production from the local food/agricultural waste, smart drainage system using algae and bacteria, ‘seedographer’ that improves resource use efficiency in agricultural farms, smart irrigation system that can help farmers to optimize water usage.

Shell India Country Chairman Nitin Prasad addresses students on the launch of NXplorers in the presence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Dr. Anjlee Prakash, Founder/Chairperson Learning Links Foundation
Shell India Country Chairman Nitin Prasad addresses students on the launch of NXplorers in the presence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Dr. Anjlee Prakash, Founder/Chairperson Learning Links Foundation

NXplorers aims to target 30 schools in the capital and is an endeavor to give students a platform in designing sustainable solutions to the food-water-energy supply using a unique combination of Systems Thinking, Scenario Planning and Theory of Change. NXplorers is being rolled out across four states and aims to reach 3000 schools and 2,60,000 students between 14-19 years of in the next three years in India.

The NXplorers programme has already registered itself in 14 other countries, namely Russia, Brazil, Egypt, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Australia, Oman, Qatar, UAE, China, Brunei, Singapore, Philippines and Trinidad.

Shell India Country Chairman Nitin Prasad addresses school children and members of the press in presence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia at the NXplorer launch
Shell India Country Chairman Nitin Prasad addresses school children and members of the press in presence of Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia at the NXplorer launch

Shri. Nitin Prasad, Chairman, Shell Companies in India added that “Shell NXplorers aims to instill complex and creative thinking skills in young Indian minds to bring about a positive change to our country’s food-water-energy nexus. Students explore issues and causes, create actions and design solutions to power sustainable growth for India and the world”

Shell hopes to reach 2,60,000 students across 3000 schools in India to explore issues and design solutions to solve real-life problems around food-water-energy. At the core of Shell’s value system is also to become a successful community champion and NXplorers strives to do just that.

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