Shams and Neloy had the idea to start a school but idea is only one part of the game. The Tech School was dwelling in the home of ideas until these three like-minded entities tied up to make it happen.
A group of teachers and trainers from all of the three entities, equipped with at least ten years of teaching experience and knowledge, enthusiastically teamed up to form The Tech School that it is today.
It takes only willingness, courage and one’s capacity to endure hardships to make an idea happen.
[su_note note_color="#f8f9f9" text_color="#25618a" radius="13"]This four part series on The Tech School is part of FS Big Idea Series where we feature powerful and provocative ideas to inspire bold and sustainable change. This is second part of The Tech School story. You can find part one here.[/su_note]
Initially, The Tech School was a free school serving the underprivileged street children. With no sustainable financial back up, Shams and Neloy invested from their own pockets, dedicating their savings to accelerate the journey to their vision. Their first few trials ended up in ashes due to lack of proper funding like many other start ups.
After awhile Luke Doyle and Mr. and Mrs. Mujahidul Islam Rana helped the school in various ways from providing managerial advice to providing the school premises.
The founders of The Tech School are ever grateful to all of the six board members for their everlasting support through the eve and tide the school went through. The Tech School being an engineering firm alongside being a school provides engineering solutions to companies and individuals. This is another source of fund that supports the school financially quite well.
When this dynamic duo came up with an idea of devising a unique institution out of the conventional educational structure, their first target were the street children, the most vulnerable section. At the beginning of their adventure, the duo dropped out of their university for which they were much criticized. Dropping out of the university, which is a extremely risky attempt to many at the beginning seemed a foolish idea to their friends and families. They became the source of fancy talk to their gossip loving friends and relatives! But they were not the person to be daunted easily!
Being merely students and without a steady source of income, Shams and Neloy had no proper source to fund for their first project let alone proper supply of necessary resources. The lack of monetary support and resources was a big issue that forced them to stop the project.
It takes quite a while for people to believe that such strange thing can exist and it gets harder to convince parents on the expected outcomes. Alongside with monetary support, lack of resources was another issue that made parents reluctant to put their kids with the Tech School.
When the founders shifted their target to the children of upper middle class families they faced with new challenges. Either the parents did not want their children to pursue such education or when they did, they wanted the benefits to reap in no time. Many kids were pulled out of the school even before they started learning the basics as they parents felt that it was nothing but a waste of time and energy, and obviously money, as the results were not quick and in the door.
The financial hardship was eventually solved someday with the aid of the board members. But it was still difficult to convince people to keep faith and trust on their academic model which they aspired and envisioned to bring positive change in the society. And it is prevalent to all common people and society in all ages that they are reserve, critical and unwelcoming to new things at the beginning. But if they find benefit in the changes and profit from the new vision they run after that!
That is what happened with the persons on whom we are singing today! There were some good stories ahead of them. They discovered Abrar and Safwan, the tech whiz kids from The Tech School who had made some exposure at national level competitions. That have somewhat facilitated the rate of transformation of opinion against them. Now many parents are self motivated to see their children enrolled in this school.
But it does not put an end to their struggle. There is more to it. Please come back later to learn rest of the story.
Credit: This Story is written by Fatema Mohammad for Future Startup, edited by Sabidin Ibrahim. Images by The Tech School
