LOGO: Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar
Ludhiana: Fourteen-year-old Namya Joshi of Class VIII of Sat Paul Mittal School would be conferred with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, 2021, for her outstanding innovation. She is the only recipient from the states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and UT Chandigarh.
Namya has been leveraging technology to make learning and teaching fun, not just for herself but also for teachers by using interactive Minecraft sessions. Minecraft is a Lego-style video game, in which players are placed in various randomly generated worlds that they can manipulate.
It all started three years ago when Namya was in Class V and working on her school project when she chanced upon Minecraft. She says, “I remember the software asking for a username and password. I gave my mother’s login credentials.”
On using Minecraft as a teaching methodology, she says, “At school, I was exposed to Microsoft tools, like Scratch and Flipgrid. Minecraft was another tool that was used, but its potential was not fully explored. For example, if a student finds a particular topic or concept difficult to grasp, I try and create it on Minecraft in a way to make it easy to understand.”
It was her IT teacher mother, Monika Joshi, who encouraged her to work on the software and find ways to use it for her academics as well. Her father Kunal Joshi is also an IT professional
Namya’s list of achievements includes honours from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella for creating a course material in Minecraft Education Edition and STEM and Microsoft India president Anant Maheshwary for training more than 100 teachers to make their lessons interesting with the help of game-based learning.
Aiming to become a social entrepreneur and create a gamified system in sync with education, she says, “After a workshop at school, I thought gaming can be taken to higher levels for creating lessons and training teachers across the globe.”
On Namya’s achievement, Rakesh Bharti Mittal, director of Sat Paul Mittal School, says, “The feat is an inspiration for the young brigade. I am confident that this recognition will inspire many more students to push the boundaries and accomplish great things for society and nation.”
Deputy commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma honoured Namya at the district administrative complex on Monday and said Ludhiana was proud of its daughters.
PM hails Punjab ki beti
During a virtual meeting with students from noon to 1pm on Monday, the PM said Punjab ki beti Namya was doing exemplary work in her field.
“Rs 1 lakh have been transferred to her account, but a certificate, medal and letter citation will be given to her during the event,” said her mother, Monika Joshi.