Cognizant Outreach's Project Dhyeya: Empowering Students from Economically Disadvantaged Backgrounds for Engineering Education

For many students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the path to engineering is often cut short not by a lack of ability but by a lack of access to quality teaching, mentoring, and resources. Over the last nine years, Cognizant Outreach’s Project Dhyeya has been working to change that reality, creating a structured pathway that supports students from Class 8 through engineering education and into the workforce. The volunteer-led effort that began in Pune has since expanded to Hyderabad, Kolkata and Bhubaneswar, supporting more than 650 students across four cities. Speaking to TheIndian Express, Abhijit Datar, Global Delivery Head, IoT and Engineering, Cognizant, who has been closely associated with the initiative, said, “Our programme focuses on early intervention, recognising that the most critical gaps in India’s education system emerge well before college. There is a massive drop between Class 10 and Classes 11–12. “A student scoring 90 per cent in Class 10 often falls to 70 per cent in Class 11, for example. That drop has nothing to do with intelligence. It’s about preparedness,” he added.