Students taught by government teachers under Asha’s ACE project, submitted over 900 projects in Digital Literacy and Programming. 41 selected teams competed in ACE Impressions held at IIT Madras. Here is a detailed report on the event.

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Asha Computer Education (ACE) is the flagship initiative by Asha, to bring computer literacy to government school classrooms. ACE was inaugurated in October 2023 with a goal to train 52 government teachers in Thiruvallur district to deliver Asha’s one-year computer science curriculum across 52 schools. You may read the full report here – ACE Program Inaugurated on 19th Oct 2023

The ACE program is entirely funded by Amazon under its Amazon Future Engineer program. By joining hands with government teachers to implement ACE, Asha attempted to equip rural students with essential computer skills that would open doors to higher education, better job opportunities, and a brighter future.

In 2024, we launched ACE V2 in 53 more schools, and in 2025 in 40 more schools offering a more extensive, two-year computer science curriculum, and expanded our geography to Thoothukudi, Thiruvannamalai and Villupuram, in addition to Thiruvallur. Here is the report- ACE V2 Inauguration. With some schools stopping out after the completion of the first full year for ACE v1 and v2 in April of 2025, we had 125 schools implementing ACE in 2025-26.

This initiative was designed to demonstrate the scalability and effectiveness of our curriculum, pedagogy, training model, evaluation framework, and overall delivery approach. As a result, over 4000 students have directly benefitted from the ACE program.

About ACE Impressions

The curriculum of every Asha program is designed so that 1/3^rd of the term is dedicated to Project work. After the teachers cover the curriculum, the students are grouped into teams of 2,3 or 4 and required to create and submit a project. Both the government teachers and Asha teachers act as guides to help children in creating their projects. They are also provided support to hone their presentation skills.

Over time, children have been able to pick up diverse and interesting topics for their presentation. They spend time of their own accord to research topics, use features taught beyond the curriculum and submit excellent projects.

This year, under the ACE program, we received an impressive 933 project submissions from 3,745 students, marking 100% participation across all ACE schools.

Despite the challenges of exam schedules and the onset of vacation, the students demonstrated remarkable commitment, delivering projects of outstanding quality which is an achievement in itself and speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the program.

This year, the students were taught three courses-

1. Digital Literacy
2. Scratch Programming and
3. CSF Express Programming

The 933 projects were first evaluated by Asha’s lead teachers, from which 123 were shortlisted. These were then reviewed by Asha volunteers, who selected 41 projects for the final competition. ACE Impressions is the platform where these finalists are invited to Chennai to present their work and compete with peers for prizes. The competition is judged by external experts from academia and the technology sector, ensuring a fair and rigorous evaluation.

You may read reports on the previous Impressions events here. ACE Impressions – Batch 1 and ACE Impressions – Batch 2

The Competition

This year both the Asha Impressions for our SPRINT program and the ACE Impressions for the ACE program were held within 2 days of each other – Asha Impressions on 18^th April and ACE Impressions on 20^th April. Once the Asha Impressions concluded, there was no time to rest. The preparation for ACE Impressions had been underway alongside.

The competition was held on 20 April, 2026 at the CLT Auditorium at IIT Madras. IIT Madras, a long term partner of Asha in many programs, graciously gave us this auditorium and nearby hall for free!

The teams from Thiruvallur and Thiruvanamalai started early morning around 3 am, while the teams from Thoothukudi travelled overnight in buses organized by Asha. Asha project coordinators, Government teachers and Asha teachers accompanied the students. The buses reached IIT around 8.00 am.

Once the children had their breakfast, everyone assembled in the auditorium. The judges arrived by 9.00 pm after which Mr. Rajaraman, Asha Volunteer and Coordinator, welcomed the gathering. The Digital Literacy competition was planned to be held at the main auditorium, while the room across the hall would be used for the other two competitions.

Before the start of the event, Mr. Rajaraman briefed the judges about the grading parameters and set expectations regarding the projects. He provided background on the ACE program and outlined what was expected from the students in their project work.

The Digital Literacy presentations would carry 30-30-40 weightage. Project and presentation would be graded at 30% whereas the Q&A would carry 40% weightage. Judges were encouraged to actively engage students with technical questions, asking how they developed their projects and requesting demonstrations or modifications to better understand the functionality of specific features.

In the case of Scratch Programming and Physical Computing, where the presentation component was less extensive, the weightage for project, presentation and Q&A was adjusted to 40-20-40.

Across all competitions, the Q&A sessions held particular importance, as they allowed judges to assess both the students’ depth of technical knowledge and their level of involvement in the projects.

Each competition was assigned four judges. After selecting the competition they wished to evaluate, judges were provided with scorecards. Soon after, the students began presenting their projects. Judges were requested to allocate 15 minutes per project- 10 minutes for the presentation and the remaining time for the Q&A session.

The competitions began around 10 am, and the teachers and staff guided students as per the scheduled line up. In Digital Literacy the students presented interesting topics like Water pollution, AI In Science, Our Universe, Solar System, Traditional vs Modern Farming, Renewable Energy, உத்வேக பயணம், Thirukkural etc. They created acts, brought in props, added fun music, and games making their presentations engaging and entertaining.

A special mention goes to the students who presented on the topic of Eye Donation. Their contribution went far beyond preparing and presenting a project, they took the extraordinary step of pledging their own eyes. Guided by their teacher, they visited doctors to understand the process in depth, and later received official confirmation letters and eye donation cards from the hospital.

Their act of generosity also got them a place of mention in the local newspaper!

This selfless act of service left the audience deeply moved and inspired. It is truly commendable that when students grasp the essence of what they are taught, it transforms into meaningful action that benefits society. Such outcomes reflect the highest purpose of education- knowledge that sparks compassion, responsibility, and real change.

The Scratch Programming students presented on topics like Top 10 Most Powerful World Leaders, Dora explores English, Mobile Awareness story, Nobita in Indian festivals, Brain test game, Science simulator etc.

CSF Express Programming was introduced in ACE schools in 2025. CSF refers to Code.org’s Computer Science Fundamentals curriculum. The Express Course is an accelerated, self-paced track within their program that teaches core computer science concepts to older students or those moving at a faster pace. The Express Course uses a block-based coding approach, allowing learners to build programs by snapping visual blocks together like puzzle pieces.

Students presented on topics like Maanin Meetchi, Exploring religious places in Tamilnadu, Disaster Management and Safety Awareness, Fish hunting game, Spaceshooter etc. For one of the projects titled Four Friends, the students staged an elaborate skit. For the project Maanin Meetchi the students even crafted a handmade stage, adding a unique and captivating visual appeal to the story.

We broke for lunch around 1 pm. Lunch was biryani which is generally a house favourite. It took about one hour for everyone to have lunch and settle. Post lunch the students continued to present their projects. The competitions were done by 4 PM, post which the judges shared the list of winners with Mr. Rajaraman.

Prize Distribution

Since ACE program is funded entirely by Amazon, we had requested Amazon to participate in the event. Mr. Shyam Sridhar, Director-Operations and Program Management at Amazon graciously accepted our invitation as the Chief guest for the event.

A total prize fund of INR 9,00,000 was allocated to the winning teams. Instead of distributing the amount in cash, Asha will channel the prize money into infrastructure development projects for the respective schools, ensuring that the rewards create lasting impact and benefit the wider student community.

The winners were announced by the respective competition judges to loud applause and cheer.

The winners of the competitions are-

The Government of Tamil Nadu has launched SPARK (Tamil Nadu Schools Programme for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Knowledge of Online Tools), an initiative aimed at equipping government school students with practical skills in digital technology, AI, and coding. Asha hopes to engage with the Spark program the same way in which it has trained the teachers of the ACE program.

To acknowledge and appreciate the dedication of all CS trainers who contributed to ACE, Asha presented them with smartwatches as a token of gratitude for their hard work and commitment.

After the distribution was completed, the students boarded their buses and set off home after taking a small detour to the beaches of Chennai!

Testimonial

Mr. Vinoth Kumar, ACE Judge– First of all, I would like to thank my friend Ganga (an Asha omputer teacher in Thiruvarur) for giving me this wonderful opportunity to be part of ACE Impressions – Asha for Education. I truly appreciated the way the program was conducted; it was very well organized. It was inspiring to see the motivation and enthusiasm of the children, especially those coming from the southern parts of Tamil Nadu, showcasing their talents with the guidance of their teachers. It was impressive to witness how they progressed through various projects and earned their spots in the finals. I feel privileged to have been one of the judges, sharing my thoughts and helping choose the deserving winners. I am extremely happy to have been part of this experience and would love to contribute more in the future.