Over 85 per cent of brain development occurs before the age of six, and from the effective altruism viewpoint, it generates among the highest social returns on investment and is one of the most significant factors impacting the long-term trajectories of children, countries and the world at large. However, over 37 million low-income children in India cannot access quality Early Childhood Education (ECE). Forty three per cent of children from low-income households cannot recognise the alphabet, and 35 per cent cannot recognise numbers in Grade 1. This stunted development cannot be made up later as delay in building neuronal connections in early years becomes more and more difficult to change through remedial interventions later in life.

Leveraging India’s increasing smartphone and internet penetration, Rocket Learning has developed an innovative WhatsApp-based solution that connects the government education system with parents and communities, delivering tailored, supplementary academic content to 1.5 million children every day. The platform has successfully built 100,000 digital communities comprising Anganwadi (Daycare) workers and low-income parents on WhatsApp. The goal is to deliver quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) through daily bite-sized, play-based learning activities. These activities create feedback loops and motivate parents to actively engage in their children's learning journeys. Empowering Anganwadi workers, the platform provides audiovisual educational content on WhatsApp groups for everyday teaching. Progress is shared through photos/videos on teacher groups, leading to regular badges. The ultimate vision is to experientially train 1.3 million pre-school educators by 2025, making a significant impact on early education.

Rocket Learning’s model has made it fast and easy for educational material to trickle down to parents and children, created a collaborative learning ecosystem by fostering peer accountability among parents and enabling streamlined feedback to Anganwadi (day care centre) educators. All of this at $1 per child, per year. The organisation impacts more than 1.5 million children, working with 100,000 parent communities across 9 states in India. On average, a child in a Rocket Learning (RL) cohort scores 30 percentage points higher than a non-RL class.