Yash Dhir, Rahul Nambiar win Penn President’s Innovation Prize 

Two Indian students of Pennsylvania University, Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar have been awarded the 2024 President’s Innovation Prize for their web-based educational management tool, Jochi.

Jochi helps middle and high school students who have learning differences, like ADHD, keep track of their school assignments and outside activities.

Schools that license Jochi integrate the management tool into their system, giving access to educators so they can better provide the students support, according to Penn Today.

Since the initial days of his first year at Penn, fourth-year student Yash Dhir had been steadily working on an idea that came to him as he was studying remotely from his home in London during fall of 2020: how to enable students to structure their time outside of class with the same level of support they have inside of school.

“I had learning differences in high school, and I had gone through a lot of obstacles to get to Penn,” Dhir says. “A lot of what we’re doing with Jochi, it’s really resonated with me.”

READ: Aditya Kunjapur awarded BII & Science Prize for Innovation (April 25, 2024)

Dhir’s partner is fourth-year Rahul Nambiar, who is from Dubai. Both are in the School of Engineering and Applied Science: Dhir a systems science and engineering major, and Nambiar a computer science major, who is submatriculating for a master’s degree.

They have been friends since they met on campus in January of 2021, during a pandemic-delayed student Move-In, both of them living in the Quad, Nambiar in Riepe and Dhir in Fisher. They were roommates in Harrison Hall their second year, and by the third year they were business partners.

Now the pair are recipients of the President’s Innovation Prize. They will receive $100,000 for Jochi, and a $50,000 living stipend each. In addition, Jochi will have a workplace in the Pennovation Center, Penn’s business incubator.

READ: Two Indian Americans among Children’s Climate Prize 2022 finalists (September 20, 2022)

Awarded annually, the President’s Innovation Prize and President’s Engagement Prize empower Penn undergraduate students to design and undertake post-graduation projects that make a positive, lasting difference in the world. The Prizes are the largest of their kind in higher education.

“Inventors at their core, Yash Dhir and Rahul Nambiar identified a gap and a solution to support students with learning differences. They have used their creativity and determination to turn an ambitious vision into a very useful product,” says Interim President J. Larry Jameson.

“While balancing the academic demands of college, they’ve imagined—and reimagined—Jochi, a project we are pleased to award this year’s President’s Innovation Prize.”

The Innovation Prize is one of several Penn awards Jochi and its founders have earned in recent weeks. Together this funding totals nearly $300,000, including the $50,000 Draper Bridge Fund Award from Penn’s Venture Lab and $30,000 for the Startup Challenge. They also were named semifinalists in the international 2024 Milken Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition.

The Innovation Prize will allow the pair to accelerate their already-ambitious goals, in part because of the financial backing, but also because of faculty support. “We’re in an education market, so having Penn’s name behind this, validating our product, and validating us as student founders, is so important,” Dhir says.

READ: 2 Indian startups among finalists for £1 million Earthshot Prize (November 7, 2022)

The company is generating revenue and currently is in nine schools, reaching about 900 students, they say. The goal is to reach 20,000 learners by May of next year.

Jochi is an integrated management solution for students with learning differences who attend traditional schools. The tool comes in two components: a planner for students and a management tool for learning specialists and educators. Students using Jochi have a personal interface to a digital planner that connects to their school computer systems, assisting them to manage their time.

“A student basically manages their entire life outside the classroom on our tool,” Dhir says.Educators similarly have an interface and can provide support based on the real-time information. “What we’ve built is a dashboard that consolidates everything they need to know about a student,” Dhir says.

The tool tracks grades and assignments, how long it takes them to do an assignment, and extracurricular activities and responsibilities. “We’ve painted a complete picture for these educators to really understand how their students are doing inside and outside the classroom so that the support that they provide to them is as resource-efficient as possible.”

The name Jochi stems from a Korean word for “it’s good,” Dhir says. “But it also means in an abstract way productivity and organization that are embedded into your day-to-day life. It’s like a way of living.”

And Dhir says he and Nambiar liked the “funkiness” of the name, different from something like “daily planner.” “We wanted something that says, ‘We’re taking this new approach, this new energy, to ed tech.’” The signature color is an eye-popping purple. “That was symbolic to how we wanted to be known in this space,” Dhir says.