Despite India’s booming digital economy, access to high-quality tech jobs remains deeply unequal. While millions of students graduate each year, a vast majority struggle to translate their degrees into employment, let alone high-paying, future-ready careers.

The Barabari Collective was founded by Harihar Menon and Karthik Krishnakumar shortly after college to address the stark disparity in access to tech career opportunities. With a deep commitment to equitable access, Barabari is building a hybrid learning experience that enables students in government colleges to develop practical tech skills while earning through freelance work, creating a pathway to both learning and livelihood from day one.

Barabari’s flagship Digital Excellence Program is a credit-based curriculum designed to develop first-principles on tech problem solving. Over 3–4 semesters, students build strong foundations in front-end and back-end development, AI, workplace communication, and soft skills. Alongside this, Barabari runs the Tech Collective — a curated freelance marketplace where students take on real-world tech projects, enabling them to earn and build a strong portfolio while they learn. Barabari’s unique hybrid approach has already shown promise with over 90+ students placed in roles across companies like Amazon, Adobe, and Udaan. The team is currently working with 2 government colleges in Telangana and non-profits to scale access to thousands more.

As part of our pre-MVP pilot, where we’re supporting early-stage ideas with capital and tech support, ACT For Education is excited to help The Barabari Collective develop and pilot Samvad Saathi, an AI-powered interview prep tool. Samvad Saathi enables students to practice and improve their communication skills, a critical barrier to employment, through simulated interview experiences, personalized feedback, and conversational prompts. 

With ACT’s pre-MVP grant, The Barabari Collective will:

• Pilot Samvad Saathi with 300+ students and test adoption across partner colleges and NGOs to iterate toward a scalable MVP that can be embedded into Barabari’s skilling programs across India. 
• Scale its solution to a broader set of students across Tier 2/3 colleges, non-profits, and skilling organizations

The bold vision is to unlock ownership of the digital economy for India’s underserved youth, not just by offering tech training, but by embedding earning, relevance, and industry exposure directly into the learning journey. We look forward to supporting them on their path to scale where the tech ecosystem allows them to grow to 100k+ active users by 2028!