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It has officially begun. CS17 has finally come to life!

Enrollments

After the interview, we had selected 8 girls, and were planning to recruit more in time. We had two options: either postpone our planned start date or just start with what we had. After some discussion, we thought it would be better to just start with the 8 students we have and continue recruiting till the end of the month. One reason being we had already given the selected students a start date in their offer letter and it would not have been good to postpone.

The Arrival

The selected students arrived on 10th, May and things were in motion. The Chetna team had been busy preparing for their arrival: beds, boxes, warden, stationary, and more. The painting of the lab room also went till midnight.

Inauguration [11th May, 2026]

It was nothing fancy, just a normal lunch together, and then a discussion circle! Team BWH, Chetna, Azim Premji Foundation, and the first cohort of girls. Everyone started by introducing themselves and talking about their work.

Sunil ji gave a very elaborate introduction of what the Foundation is doing in Chhattisgarh. They keep surprising me with their self-less work!

At the end, there was cake cutting, and we were on our way back to the city.

Kick-off Class

In the kick-off class the next day, I first gave them an overview of the entire course, then we distributed laptops to each one of them.

Their first assignment was to reset their passwords and change wallpapers, which they did without failure :)

Recording

As planned earlier, we are recording each and every lecture. We are still figuring out operations here, but Rahul has been kind enough in accompanying me daily for managing these (transferring data, setting up proper audio, etc.). I want to edit and publish those soon on a portal.

Figuring Things Out

Some “plans” just don’t work out 😂

We have been figuring things out along the way. For example, since our English teacher (Mr. Mohanty) is only able to start by 11AM, we designed our timings around that. Here is the current working time table:

• 9-9.30AM: Self-revision
• 9.30-11.25AM: Lecture by BWH (I am taking all morning classes for now)
• 11.30AM-1.30PM: English Class
• [Lunch]
• 2.30PM-5PM: Working on assignments / Self-learning
• 5PM-6PM: BWH (Math Lecture by Vishwajeet or “Lab”)

We provided each one with a cs17.org email. Special thanks to Sagar Sharma (my good friend) from Frappe for helping us with a Frappe Mail setup! For chat, we are setting up Raven.

Also, wiki.cs17.org is now portal.cs17.org, since it has more than Wiki now. It is going to be a portal for assignments, chat, notes, and more!

Rest of the week

It started very simple with an overview of core components of a Computer. The parts of their laptop. Then moved to basic types of software, creating folders, and files, and then to application softwares.

One thing was interesting: I opened up a desktop computer and showed them the core parts of it!

My plan is to teach them software from a user perspective this quarter and I have started with the “office” stack. Obviously the FOSS version of it: LibreOffice. Along the way I am getting them accustomed with meta things like taking screenshots and keyboard shortcuts.

I have setup a teacher’s handbook on our portal here where I am noting the things I am teaching with some personal annotations. You will find exactly what was covered in this handbook.

The response has been good and they are also asking genuine questions.

Assignments

I do not want to call them “homeworks”, because traditional education has corrupted its image. Assignments are small, small tasks based on that day’s lecture. Here are a few examples:

• Copy over your hand-written notes to LibreOffice Writer and format it
• Create a sheet in LibreOffice Calc, take a screenshot of it, and add it to your notes
• Find out about Bill Gates & Microsoft
• Send emails to me and to each other

The First Problem Set

A very core part of CS50 are its problem sets. I want the same to be with CS17. I spent hours designing the first problem set.

Problem sets are hosted on Frappe Wiki and submissions will be via Frappe Learning (right now it is via emails).

Up Next

The plan is to go a bit slow this week and let them work on the first problem set. Also, to get them comfortable and confident with more of the office suite.

Honest confession, I have been having a lot of fun at running CS17, I can imagine myself doing this full-time some day.