Dhairya Pujara was your average, high-achieving, millennial, Indian male. Pujara went to Drexel University and earned his engineering degree, excited to use his skills in the real world. However, when he went Mozambique to try and help the healthcare system he was disheartened. Many people think of the developing world as seriously lacking high-tech medical equipment. Pujara found the opposite – an overabundance of unusable equipment. Parts were missing, ultrasounds had no gel, the socket did not configure to Mozambique’s wall sockets. Donated equipment was wasting away because the manuals where in English and Spanish.
Pujara hit rock bottom when a patient died choking on his own blood in front of him because, despite his engineering degree from a good school, he didn’t actually know how to fix a generator that could have saved this man’s life. It was through this experience of his and the lack of knowledge within hospital employees that helped him find the idea for his start-up. Each member of the staff knew various bits and pieces about the different technology within the hospital, and long lectures from Pujara weren’t helping very much since he didn’t know Portuguese. This cooperative, informal, peer-to-peer training was the most effective form.
Pujara had a plan. To educate the world through “non-formal learning.” Thus, Ycenter was born. This company aims to “[offer] non-formal learning experiences that creates an impact in the world.” Through brief 3-5 day learning experiences to extensive 3-6 month immersions Ycenter aims to provide this brand of practical learning to anyone who will take it. And through recent events such as the TedX Summit in Philadelphia based around the Big 5 colleges Pujara aims to spread this kind of learning to the world at large, making individuals, communites, and nations more knowledgeable and successful.