Updated Jul 13, 2020
Sneha Sheth
Send MessageFocus Areas:
Education, Gender and Technology
Implemented In:
India
Low-income parents are motivated to give their children the best education, but struggle to do so, particularly during the early years. Their children enter primary school behind and never have a chance to catch up. The scale of the problem is enormous, especially in India, where there are 150 million illiterate women and by 5th grade, only half of children can read at a 2nd grade level.
Dost’s program solves everyday parent problems and nudges them to promote cognitive development, socio-emotional skills, and school preparedness. The program consists of 1 minute podcasts delivered via phone calls four times a week (“phonecasts”), a parent counseling hotline, and community-based workshops. Digital plus offline support in local languages allows us to reach parents right where they are and build awareness, empowerment, and motivation to take charge of their child’s early learning.
Projected Cumulative Lives Impacted | 1,000,000 | |
Recruit | 1 operations, 1 engineering, 2 sales | |
New Feature | Create rich-media content for low-income families to be accessed via smartphone access. |
Dost was co-founded by Sneha Sheth (CEO) and Sindhuja Jeyabal (CTO) in 2015 when they were graduate students at UC Berkeley. Upon graduation, they were accepted as a nonprofit into Y Combinator and funded by the Mulago Foundation in 2017. Dost's team is a mix of teachers, engineers, and entrepreneurs who share a passion to get all kids ready for school.
EXECUTIVE TEAM INCLUDES WOMEN