Recently our world and community has changed tremendously with Covid-19 causing virtually everything to close, our concerns have been spread to many things, including our community’s education. Everything was resorted to online, and scrambling parents started working from home and also juggled to manage their children’s online schooling. Seeing this as an opportunity, local Tompkins Highschool students started offering free online classes as a support and supplement.
A couple months ago Amogh Ayyalasomayajula, a sophomore at Tompkins high school started an organization called TechUbuntu which was created to teach underprivileged and special-ed kids. Ubuntu is an African word meaning “I am because we are” and “humanity and compassion”. Due to covid-19, TechUbuntu expanded and realized the opportunity to teach all kids from grade levels K-10. When asked why Amogh did this, he said, “Due to Covid-19, with everyone turning to online learning, I have seen my friends and family struggle to adjust; so I decided to help our local Katy community students by starting a free online tutoring program for students from grades K -10. “
With help from 6 volunteers, TechUbuntu has so far 277 scheduled classes in the Katy community area and are providing more than 200 free hours of teaching in just Summer of 2020 alone. The volunteers teach Math, English/ Reading, Science, and Computer science and their focus is to help students who are struggling or need support with online learning. Along with Amogh, fellow Tompkins students, Sanjay Sivakumar, Neha Arvinth, Sharvari Pendharkar, Risa Bora, Jimly Bora and Pranav Akkaraju joined the effort and are helping students in the community.
With overwhelming response to the free online tutoring, students plan to open up the Fall 2020 calendar shortly so local students can avail the opportunity to learn. More information can be found at www.techubuntu.org.