TajRupt is a nongovernmental organization with a mission of empowering the youth to upend Tajikistan’s development trajectory. We bring this mission into reality through two youth hubs: Extracurricular Resource Center (ERC), and tajrupt.ai (TAI). The ERC was launched in 2017 and has been funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, UNICEF, Open Society Foundations, and other institutional donors. TAI was launched in 2019 and is funded by the Islamic Development Bank’s Science, Technology, and Innovation Fund.
extracurricular resource center (erc)
enables high school and university students to develop critical thinking skills and implement social impact projects. To date, 5000 students have completed ERC courses ranging from history and economics, to arts and philosophy. These students have implemented 85 projects impacting thousands of local residents. The latest version of the curriculum is currently being tested with 100 enrolled students.
tajrupt.ai (tai)
is Central Asia’s first artificial intelligence lab with an objective of transforming Tajikistan into a regional hub for machine learning education and entrepreneurship. At TAI, high school and university students have access to a supervised ML curriculum incorporating statistics, calculus, and programming in Python. Additionally, TAI is implementing an applied research project on deploying ML in financial services sector.
“At school, we learn what to think. At TajRupt, we learn how to think.”
- TajRupt student graduate
Our Impact
Our impact model is driven by student graduates emerging as agents of change within their communities. This model consists of two sub-components: critical thinking, and civic engagement. In the first segment of our curriculum, the students develop the ability to identify and interpret cause-effect relationships through survey of various academic disciplines. Afterward, the students learn about project design, implementation and evaluation through tools of design thinking and conduct user interviews to identify specific local issues to tackle. During the social impact project (SIP) phase, the students aim to improve targeted societal outcomes through their projects.
5000
student graduates
From history and economics, to arts and philosophy, our civic education curriculum aims to develop critical thinking skills among the students.
120
social impact projects implemented
From installing waste recycling systems at schools, to conducting academic tutoring clubs and volunteering at orphanages, our students implement projects tackling local social issues.
2000+
local residents have been positively impacted
From raising awareness about climate change, to improving academic performance of students, local residents have been positively impacted by our students.