Why I Aspire: Tanashya Batra

03 Feb Why I Aspire: Tanashya Batra

Woodstock student Tanashya Batra shares her motivation for getting involved in Aspire, our new social entrepreneurship summer programme. Aspire is an initiative of the Centre for Imagination in collaboration with the curriculum advisory group.

I am Tanashya Batra, a senior at Woodstock School. I am one of the people who worked on the Aspire programme. Prior to joining Woodstock in my junior year, I was at a school in Chandigarh. There, I participated in a competition called the Social Innovation Relay. Teams from all over India came up with an innovation and work out the details of sustainability, marketing and funding. My team was called the Strawberry Entrepreneurs. We innovated a bioplastic made of pine needles and tamarind seeds. It was called the pine wrap. We competed with about 196 people from India. We ended up winning at the national level. And while we didn’t win at the international level, it was a big achievement for me.

This experience really taught me that teenagers are capable of working efficiently in teams and that can lead to successful, sustainable projects. I have always tried to explain this experience to people and only a few people get it. That is why I got involved with Aspire. I want to help provide a platform for experiential learning for teenagers across India.

The most important thing this Relay gave me was my passion for teamwork and taking initiative. That drove me to work on organising Aspire. Rishi Thomas (Class of 2016) and I were working on creating workshops for teenagers in the winter of 2015 and that led us to discuss the possibility of a summer program. Our team has put a lot of thought into this initiative. We all have our reasons for working on this program and we are all driven from a passion to reach out to teenagers across India.

Tanashya Batra, Woodstock student

About Aspire

Are you ready to address the challenges of the 21st century and create solutions to face our global crises? A unique social entrepreneurship program, Aspire is for teenagers passionate about making a change in their communities. Aspire was created based on the Design Thinking approach, with experienced guest speakers from a range of fields. You will not only learn about social entrepreneurship, but experience it. Aspire takes place from 3-8 July 2017 in and around the Woodstock campus. Apply by Wednesday 1 March 2017 here to take advantage of early bird application discount. Find out more about Aspire here.

This is Aspire