Background & History
The Story of The Granny Cloud
The Granny Cloud was born from a beautiful, yet deceptively simple idea — that children, given the appropriate encouragement and access, can teach themselves almost anything.
1999–2004
Chapter 1
The Roots — Hole in the Wall
From 1999 to 2004, in his Hole in the Wall experiment, Sugata Mitra found that children in disadvantaged and rural areas of India — who had never seen computers before — could teach themselves how to use them and learn a smattering of English in the process. Along the way, they discovered how to collaborate with peers to figure things out. A key question began to emerge: What impact could encouragement have on curricular learning?
2008–2009
Chapter 2
The First Indian SOLE Labs
In 2008 and 2009, the first Indian (SOLE) Self Organised Learning Environments labs were established in Hyderabad and Sindhudurg, Maharashtra. These were typically in urban slum or remote rural locations, serving children from poor socio-economic backgrounds. It quickly became clear that their ability to make the most of internet resources was limited by their comprehension of English. That was when the idea of The Granny Cloud was born — to have native English speakers connect via Skype with children in remote and disadvantaged locations, enabling them to pick up English the way we all learn any language: by hearing it and using it in conversation. Within days of the very first sessions, it became clear that learning English would be only one of many possibilities. The Grannies used storytelling, songs, puzzles and games to reach out to the children.
2010–2013
Chapter 3
Growth and Expansion
By December 2009, when the Orient Global Education Fund (OGEF) project concluded, there were 11 centres, all in India. Ten in Hyderabad and one in Shirgaon, Maharashtra. Though these gradually closed in 2010 due to funding constraints and a certain degree of apathy on part of the schools, the Granny Cloud concept continued to develop in other locations. Between 2010 and 2013, additional independent and self-funded centres were established in Rameshwarwadi, Varanasi, Rayalpad, Panchgani, Pune and Phaltan in India, and in Bogotá and Cartagena in Colombia.
2013–2016
Chapter 4
The TED Prize & School in the Cloud Era
In 2013, Sugata Mitra was awarded the TED Prize and five School in the Cloud labs were established (3 in West Bengal, 1 in Maharashtra and 1 in New Delhi), integrating the SOLE and The Granny Cloud concepts. With the conclusion of the TED School in the Cloud project in 2016, most of these labs gradually wound down, with the lab in Phaltan (Maharashtra) returning to its original independent status.
2016–2020
Chapter 5
Full Steam Ahead
The Granny Cloud continued to evolve and explore different ways of reaching children in disadvantaged situations. Through it all, it chose to remain a small, entirely volunteer and self-funded entity. Over the years, it reached out to many independent centres in India and other countries. Every so often, some centres closed and new ones taken on. All these functioned in different kinds of locations (rural, semi-rural, urban, urban slum) and varied settings (schools, community centres, private homes).
2020–2022
Chapter 6
COVID-19 and the Decision to Pause
COVID-19 presented unexpected challenges for The Granny Cloud — an initiative entirely based on online interactions serving resource-poor locations. With children in lockdown and with no access to their centres, and minimal or no home internet, reaching them became extremely difficult. After exploring various strategies — including asynchronous outreach and using parents’ mobile phones — and in the face of ageing volunteers and related health challenges, the decision was made to wind the initiative down in June 2022.
2026
Chapter 7