This 24-year-old mechanical engineer quit his job to set up an innovation lab in rural Odisha
Sameer Kumar Misra is helping students at Gram Vikas Vidya Vihar, who are mostly first-generation tribal learners, think out of the box and innovate. Nestled in the scenic valley of the Eastern Ghats in Rudhapadar village in the Ganjam district of Odisha lies Gram Vikas Vidya Vihar, a residential school run by Gram Vikas. Students here are mostly first-generation tribal learners, who, until 2016, thought that innovation and design thinking were limited only to Europe and the West. The change in thought and the desire to innovate was triggered when Sameer Kumar Misra, a mechanical engineer who was appointed to work at Gram Vikas as a part of SBI Youth for India Fellowship, started to screen movies such as October Sky and Big Hero 6 for children during the weekends.…