(clicking) >> I am Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at Google for the sixth annual Top Women in Cloud Awards event with CloudNOW. Very excited to be joined by next guest, Ajit George, the Managing Director of the Shanti Bhavan Children's Project. Welcome to the cube. >> Hi Lisa, it's great to be here. >> So, I was so excited to have a chat with you. The Shanti Bhavan Children's Project is incredible. Tell us about it, 20 years now, tell us about what that is, how your family is involved, and what it's helping to do for these young children in Bangelore, India? >> Sure, Shanti Bhavan was founded by my father, Dr. Abraham George, 20 years ago, and its goal is to educate children, but also to eliminate poverty and change entire systems of communities and governments. It, the way we achieve this goal is by taking children from the poorest communities in India, giving them a high-quality, boarding school education, from the age of four until they graduate from 12th grade, and we cover everything during that period. So, their healthcare, their clothing, their boarding, food, all of that is taken care of, as well as training in soft skills. So, debate, interpersonal and interview skills, leadership skills, and the whole nine yards. While we educate them in the highest curriculum, the toughest standards in India, and then we pay for their entire college degree afterwards. So, that is 17 years of a high-quality intervention per child from the very first day they start school to the very first day of work. >> That's incredible and you have a very high college graduation rate, isn't that correct? Yeah, that is correct. If they pass out of high school, their high school graduation rate is about 77%, University graduation rate is 98% and so- >> Wow, 98%. >> It's been pretty exciting and they go on from those, from college to multinational companies, like Mercedes-Benz or Amazon, or Goldman Sachs. So, our kids who come from urban slums or rural villages with huts with no running water or electricity are making more in their first five years, than their parents make in a lifetime. So, it's a quantum leap, it is a genuine breaking the cycle of poverty, and the ability to become both, either the primary or the sole breadwinner for their entire family. So, four or five other people are dependent on them at the age of 21. >> And that's incredible, I was watching, there is a Daughters of Destiny, Netflix Original Docuseries. I saw the trailer of it today, incredibly profound. One of the things that, a couple things that really stuck out to me was, this is taking children from poverty to possibility. And also, one of the young girls that was in that trailer had said, "I've got a lot to lose, it's now or never for me." These children seem to really understand the gravity of their situation, and genuinely recognize the opportunity that they've been given. >> Yeah, sure, every single Shanti Bhavan child understands, it's almost like they've won the lottery, they've had an opportunity that no one in their families have ever had, but no one from their communities have had either. They're the first person in their family for generations to get any kind of education, and so that's a powerful opportunity, but it's also an important obligation or duty to give back to the family and to make an impact for the community because they are given this golden ticket, and they want to do something important with it. If they don't succeed, nobody gives them a second chance. Kids from that kind of community, and from that kind of circumstance, don't really have a second chance if they aren't able to make the most of it. So when you hear those stories they're talking about, "hey, I really need to seize this moment." "I need to seize this opportunity," maybe, "my mother's back at home and she needs my help," maybe, "my father's bedridden." A lot of these kids have generational debt, so they owe money to, like a money lender, which is an illegal lender and that's a couple generations back. Maybe their grandparents have taken out this debt, so they have all these debts piled up on them, and they have healthcare bills piled up on them, and they've got housing and all of these other problems. Then they have to educate their younger brothers and sisters and pay for dowries for their family members. It's the enormous responsibilities on one child is huge, but they're able to step up because they're given this powerful education, this great opportunity, so there's a lot of pressure, but there's also this great knowledge that they have a horizon out there that no one in their family has ever had before. >> That's incredible and so in the last couple minutes here, CloudNOW, where we are at the awards event tonight, they've teamed up with Intel, Apcera, and CB Technologies, to launch the Daughters of Destiny STEM scholarship. So exciting, what's that going to mean for current students, at Shanti Bhavan or the future students? >> Right, I think I'm really, really thankful, first of all to CB Technologies, Intel, and Apcera, as well as the CloudNOW. This scholarship is the first of its kind within our program and it allows these three young ladies, who are the first recipients of the scholarship, and hopefully there'll be many more recipients, but these young ladies to get a high-quality college education in the STEM fields, which is their passion. So, it opens doors for them for their education, potentially for internships and maybe job opportunities after college. So, I think this is a gateway to something bright and beautiful. >> Oh, I love that and how you described it for these children as a quantum leap, is as profound as what's been shown in the Netflix series. So, Ajit, thank you so much for joining. I wish we had more time, this is such an incredible project that you're working on, but we thank you for stopping by theCUBE and sharing it with us. >> Thank you so much, Lisa, it's great to be here. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin on the ground at Google for the CloudNOW, Top Women in Technology Awards. Bye for now. (closing music)