In more than 190 schools in 19 cities of India, children, as young as six, have new toys to play with. It involves magnets and safe electrical circuits. With their imaginations firing, the children dig in with their hands and come up with creations that range from glowing lights and buzzing alarms to racing cars. A few of the older children are building LEDs, power buzzers, launch rockets and even moving bots, while getting lessons in real-world electronics safety.

These Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) kits are just one way a former Pune banker is trying to make children future ready. Shekhar Jain and his wife Reetu Jain founded On My Own Technology (OMOTEC) in 2016 to “nurture young minds in robotics and engineering”, In the beginning, there were only two schools willing to sign them up.

India is fast moving towards becoming a tech powerhouse, with policy interventions at the highest levels aimed towards achieving an integration of tech in every aspect of life. On February 3, 2026, a high-profile group of experts, who make up the government of India’s Technology Advisory Group, met in Delhi. In his address to them, Prof Ajay Kumar Sood, Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, presented a vision for a self-reliant India in which Robotics through indigenisation played an important role. “There is a need for collaborative robots and physical AI for healthcare and unmanned and dual-use platforms for defence and internal security, among others,” he said.

OMOTEC’s own roadmap fits into the larger goal of nation-building. The company has created syllabi for schools that empowers five and six-year-olds to explore, experiment and imagine as they are guided through the ways of light, motion, coding, and design in a safe and interactive way, it encourages seven- to eight-year-olds to ask bigger questions, tackle challenges turn problem solving into a game. Children between 13 and 14 have a syllabus that dives into robotics, coding, electronics, and app development, among others. “For 15 – 16-year-olds, when skills mature and ambitions grow, there are advanced projects in robotics, automation, IoT, 3D design, coding, and web development. They plan, build, and execute complex ideas – gaining mastery, confidence, and leadership to make a real-world impact,” says Jain.

The company also retails Robotics kits and carries out research and innovation “to give young people the tools, mentors, and platforms to transform concepts into award-winning projects and patents”. “We have a 12-year-old, who’s got a patent in his name. This is for a product that measures osteoporosis and arthritis, among others,” says Jain. He adds that there are children of 15, 16 and 17, who have been so committed to designing and developing products using robotics that they dedicated two or three years to this. “They have patents now,” says Jain.

As OMOTEC looks to enrol more schools into robotics, Jain has reason to look back at the year 2007, which will be remembered as the beginning of one of the worst financial crises the world had seen. As the subprime crisis sent institutions into a meltdown, Jain, a banker for 27 years, was working at the India office of a New York City-based multinational banking company. He was a part of the team that was battling the crisis as it hit.

“From an India standpoint, we had a lot of good things that actually worked. We came out of that thinking that we should try to automate all our processes. That moment really taught me that robotics can actually be implemented in making things a lot faster, better and consistent across geographies,” says Jain.

This is when Jain began to understand that engineers came with specialisations—computer science, electrical, mechanical. “When we approached them with automation, the engineers would only come up with their part of the thinking process. They could not make it a holistic product,” says Jain. It led to an unconventional solution – why not go down the age ladder and introduce robotics in schools – and the birth of OMOTEC.

The company is now focussing on moving forward with mindfulness. “OMOTEC has participated in a structured initiative to ensure the ethical disposal and recycling of electronic waste. Electronic waste is one of the fastest-growing environmental challenges of our time. Broken circuits, discarded batteries, and outdated components often end up in landfills, silently harming ecosystems. Recognizing this, OMOTEC has embedded the principle of the 3Rs—Reduce, Reuse and Recycle—into its operations and educational programmes.If we are teaching students to build the future, we must also teach them how to protect it,” says Jain.