Adway Gopakumar: Success story from The Hatchery
Meet Adway Gopakumar, a student at Emory College of Arts & Sciences and a student founder in The Hatchery Incubator.
His organization, Liberation Through Education, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated towards promoting primary education in underserved communities around the world. Established in 2016, they have raised and donated over $18,000 to schools in India, Mexico, Ghana, Morocco, and the United States. The organization is currently working on establishing a cross-cultural exchange program to facilitate joint community outreach projects between college students in the USA and high school students in third-tier cities in various countries.
"High school students in third-tier cities could benefit from receiving some extra financial or educational resources to enhance their learning experience. At the same time, college students at premier institutions across the US (like Emory), are always seeking social volunteering opportunities to gain valuable experience and polish their resumes. In connecting these two primary groups through our cross-cultural exchange program, we believe both sides can benefit.”
Since 2016, the team has grown to include three other students. Two Emory students, Connor Parrish (ECAS, Quantitative Sciences) and Rahil Mahmood (ECAS, Biology), are Co-Directors of Outreach. Benjamin Ambrose, an Arizona State University student, serves as CFO. Adway described what the organization has accomplished so far: "Our most promising result with a school in Ghana - a donation and the FLITE mentoring program helped to bolster the passing rates on a high school board exam, which increased by twenty percent."
Through the Incubator, Liberation Through Education hopes to expand its reach, not only through growing its donation base, but also adding a cultural exchange program.