Meerut village's first IITian wins Rs 10 lakh prize for reaching 3.5 lakh rural students

In 2010, Prashant Chaudhary became the first person from his village near Meerut to enter an Indian Institute of Technology. Years later, he would return to the problem of access to education from a different direction: helping students in rural India learn coding and artificial intelligence (AI) without needing a computer, a laboratory or even a trained teacher.His initiative, CodeYogi Foundation, has now reached more than 3.5 lakh students across nine states and 120 districts. On October 31, 2026, Chaudhary, a technology educator based in Dehradun, received the fifth Rohini Nayyar Prize for his contribution to rural development. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh, a citation and a trophy. Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant presented the award at a ceremony in New Delhi, according to PTI.The project uses smartphones that students already have at home to make technology education accessible in Indian languages.