By Nikhar Arora
A father in a small town outside Nagpur sat across from one of our counsellors. His daughter was fourteen. She loved mathematics. His question was not about her potential. It was about arithmetic: if he spent on her education, who would pay for her wedding?
That conversation is not an outlier. It is a pattern. And it is the pattern that Anaagat exists to change.
The problem has a new dimension
For one generation, the logic of investing in a girl’s education was straightforward. School led to a job. A job changed her worth in the family’s calculus. The return, however slowly, materialised.
That logic is under pressure.
Many of the entry-level jobs that artificial intelligence is beginning to automate are the very jobs that have historically offered first-generation working women their first opportunity.Data entry, back-office processing, basic administrative work: these are not abstract categories. They are the entry points that gave the previous generation of first-time working women a foothold. Those entry points are being removed faster than India’s education system is responding to their disappearance.
For a girl from an underserved community, who may not have a second chance if the first path closes, this is not a setback. It is erasure.
The answer is not to fear that wave. The answer is to teach her to build with it. That single shift, from potential victim of automation to confident participant in an AI-shaped economy, is what Anaagat is designed to produce.
What Anaagat is
Anaagat, from the Sanskrit for that which is yet to come, is a national initiative by Mentoria to prepare India’s underserved daughters, and the teachers who shape them, for a future being rewritten by AI.
Built on more than a decade of Mentoria’s experience in career guidance, Anaagat combines career counselling, AI literacy and community partnerships to ensure that girls are not just educated, but prepared for the future of work.
It is built on three pillars. The first is direct career guidance for adolescent girls: psychometric assessments in their own language, one-to-one counselling with a certified counsellor, AI literacy and safety training, and placement support through Arya, Mentoria’s AI career agent, which stays with each girl until she is in employment she chose. The cost of one girl’s complete journey, from first assessment to first job, is Rs 5,000. This integrated approach ensures that career guidance does not end with counselling but continues until meaningful employment.
The second pillar reaches into government school classrooms. One trained teacher reaches fifty students every year. Training 500 government school teachers as AI curriculum mentors creates a reach of 25,000 children annually, at an approximate cost of Rs 240 per child. The infrastructure already exists. This is build-out, not build-from-scratch. By strengthening existing school infrastructure instead of creating parallel systems, the programme is designed for scale and long-term sustainability.
The third pillar is permanence: AI learning labs embedded within trusted partner institutions, ensuring that communities continue to access career guidance and AI learning long after individual interventions conclude. By leveraging existing infrastructure, the programme focuses on sustainable impact rather than creating parallel ecosystems.
The model it is built on
Anaagat is not a new idea asking for an act of faith. It is a new form of something that has already produced results.
Since 2015, Mentoria has guided more than 3.75 lakh students across India through partnerships with over 350 schools and multiple NGOs and institutions. This decade of experience forms the foundation on which Anaagat has been built.
The career guidance model at Anaagat’s core was developed and tested through a decade of delivery. In the communities where that model has been running longest, 56 percent of girls who went through structured career counselling pursued higher education, compared to a district average of 26 percent. The average marriage age in those communities also increased from 16 to 22, not because of a campaign, but because girls gained the confidence, clarity and direction to make informed decisions about their futures.
These figures come from Project Anando, Mentoria’s partnership with Light of Life Trust, which has reached 19,311 children directly across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha. They are the evidence base on which Anaagat’s design rests.
The cohort model is proven and repeatable. Anaagat seeks to expand this evidence-backed approach to reach more girls, empower more teachers and strengthen AI-enabled career guidance across underserved communities through measurable and transparent impact.
Why this is the right moment for CSR
India’s National Education Policy 2020 places significant emphasis on multidisciplinary learning and preparing students for the future of work. At the same time, AI is restructuring not just industries but the very entry points through which India’s first-generation working women have historically found their footing.
CSR investment in girl child education and women empowerment has, rightly, built schools, funded scholarships, and improved access. The next frontier is different. It is about equipping the girl who is already in the education system with the clarity, confidence, and capability to navigate what comes after.
As CSR priorities evolve from improving access to creating long-term employability and resilience, initiatives like Anaagat demonstrate how career guidance, AI literacy and community partnerships can equip girls not only to participate in the future of work, but to shape it. The next chapter of CSR will not be defined only by how many children we educate, but by how effectively we prepare them to thrive in a rapidly changing world shaped by AI.
(Authored by Nikhar Arora, Founder & CEO, Anaagat by Mentoria)
