Above: Teachers in India's daycare system draw on Rocket Learning's digital platform to enhance learning. Photo courtesy Rocket Learning

When the news reached Namya Mahajan (MBA 2022) as her HBS graduation was approaching that she would receive financial assistance to offset her school loans, she knew its impact could extend far beyond her own situation. It meant she could devote herself to Rocket Learning, the nonprofit she had launched in 2020 with her brother, Azeez Gupta (MBA 2019), which leverages digital technology to improve early childhood education for India's most vulnerable children.

“I was faced with the challenge of how to service the loan while continuing to work at Rocket Learning full time,” says Mahajan, recalling the concerns that prompted her application to the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative's Loan Repayment Assistance Program—the same program her brother had been accepted into previously. It was a welcome turn of events that enabled her to achieve the dream she and Gupta had of growing Rocket Learning into a thriving enterprise that would catalyze early childhood development across their native country.

Before HBS, Mahajan had worked at a nonprofit where her compensation was low, and so her ability to save was limited. As a result, she was eligible to receive financial aid to attend the MBA Program, but she also had to take out loans to supplement the need-based aid she received. “The annual Social Enterprise grant perfectly met my yearly loan dues so it massively reduced stress and liability for me. Even as the years have passed, the Loan Repayment Assistance Program has allowed me to concentrate on investing our organization's funds in the work, without being worried about my own compensation, which has been transformative in terms of my mindset as well,” Mahajan says.

“The assistance we've received has been critical to us,” Gupta agrees. “It has meant we didn't have to worry about our school loans, especially as we were both earning about $12,000 in our first year and our loan payments were about $10,000 each.” Both Mahajan and Gupta have benefited from the School's comprehensive financial assistance program: from need-based scholarships to attend HBS, to summer fellowships between their MBA years to explore careers in less well-paying sectors, to the Loan Repayment Assistance Program for graduates working in government or a nonprofit. Additionally, Gupta received a Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship, established by Richard Menschel (MBA 1959), which awards $10,000 to MBA students who have shown leadership in the nonprofit sector.

“For both of us, the financial support was an important part of the decision to pursue an MBA because we knew that we wanted to be in the impact sector,” Gupta explains. “We didn't apply to MBA programs that did not offer scholarships and loan repayment assistance.”

Prior to HBS, Mahajan and Gupta did stints at McKinsey, then managed programs at legacy nonprofits in India—Mahajan at SEWA Federation, the largest organization supporting women experiencing economic hardship, and Gupta at Pratham, the largest education foundation. They channeled these experiences to shape Rocket Learning. “We arrived at wanting to improve early childhood education from our different perspectives,” says Mahajan. “Looking at how little was actually being done for children below age six, that felt like an area where we could make an impact.” India has a population of 1.4 billion people, and some 25 percent of adults are illiterate. To improve the educational outcomes for current and future generations, Mahajan, Gupta, and three friends cofounded Rocket Learning with the mission of reaching 50 million underserved children by 2030. They want to ensure that every child, regardless of income or background, achieves full brain and body development by age six.

The digital platform offers content that is curated by a team of teachers, vetted by the National Council for Educational Research and Training, and shared via the widely accessible WhatsApp social media platform with some 100,000 teachers in India's Anganwadi network, the world's most extensive government-run-and-funded daycare system. In addition, bite-sized videos that use everyday household objects as teaching resources are sent to children and their parents for learning at home.

Today, 2 million children in nine states in India are benefiting from the company's engaging, gamified approach to early childhood education. “We've seen across our programs that this is deeply impactful and will, hopefully, make a huge difference for these kids and for the world,” Mahajan says.

The siblings note the critical role HBS played in helping to fuel their entrepreneurial dream and turn it into a reality, giving them the confidence and insights needed to start their own venture. Both took entrepreneurship electives, used the resources of the Harvard Innovation Labs, and participated in Startup Bootcamp. Additionally, Rocket Learning received a grant from HBS alumni and the Harvard Innovation Labs' Social Impact Fellowship Fund, established by Mary Kathryn and the late Alex Navab (MBA 1991).

“HBS gives you such a solid business backing, more than any other MBA program. It introduces you to the basics of being a manager or a leader and how to build a business and gives you so much exposure to different kinds of learning. Also invaluable are the network and your peers,” says Mahajan. “Our time at the School really did transform both of us.”

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