How a Government School in Adoni Got Its First AI Lab — and What Happened Next

When the SSF team first walked into the Zilla Parishad High School in Adoni — the cotton-trading town in the far west of Kurnool district — the computer lab was a room with a handful of machines, most switched off for want of a technician. The students had heard the phrase artificial intelligence on television. None had used it.

Twelve weeks later, that same room looked different. Not because of new hardware — transformation in a government school rarely begins with money. It began with a question one of our facilitators wrote on the board: what would you build if a computer could understand you?

SSF’s AI Workshops are not coding bootcamps. They are literacy sessions designed so that a Class 9 student with no prior exposure can, by the end, prompt an AI tool, judge whether its answer is trustworthy, and use it to solve a problem that matters to them. In Adoni, students used what they learned to draft applications for state scholarships and to translate dense study material into Telugu they could actually revise from.

What happened next is the part we did not plan for. A senior teacher asked to sit in on the next session. Then two more. Government school teachers in Rayalaseema are among the most resourceful people we work with — give them a tool and they will find ten uses you never imagined.

This is how systemic change actually moves in government education: one room, one teacher, one student in Adoni who realises the future is not closed to them.

Across our 400+ schools in the 5 districts of Rayalaseema, 25,000 students are waiting for their first day with AI.

Your support funds it. ₹10,000 sponsors an AI Literacy Workshop for 50 students. Donate at rzp.io/rzp/vBh9XvS — SSF is 80G certified, so your gift is 50% tax-deductible.