Project Mentor: Prof. Eric Obeysekare, Computer Science and Engineering
2026 Impact Fellows:
Project Description:
Description: Across rural India, the internet is more than a communication tool; it is a gateway to learning, opportunity, and mobility. Yet for millions of families, smartphones and mobile data remain an unaffordable luxury. In response, communities have created ingenious systems of accessing phones, sharing hotspots, and exchanging connectivity, a phenomenon we call “megabyte hustling.”
This research and social innovation project explores how these informal digital economies operate and what they reveal about resilience, cooperation, and creativity in low resource contexts. This GSIF team will investigate how students, teachers, and families acquire, trade, and share phones and data, how social trust sustains these networks, and how these grassroots innovations are reshaping access to education and opportunity.
Working alongside Agastya International Foundation, the team will translate these insights into real world solutions to transform digital education. Students will analyze how telecom providers such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, and BSNL shape digital access, and co-develop strategies for zero-rated educational content, inclusive digital infrastructure, and community-centered learning models.
From Bytes to Brilliance invites students to question traditional narratives of digital divide and to reimagine the future of learning from the ground up. By uncovering how rural India learns to earn, connects to grow, and shares to survive, this project seeks to turn scarcity into innovation and connectivity into collective empowerment.
Students interested in technology for social impact, education innovation, behavioral research, or sustainable development are encouraged to apply.