Ignasiyus Prakash Bada, a young man from Bande village in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, has returned from Australia after completing a master’s degree in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Curtin University in Perth and has now started work in his home district. He is the first graduate of a sponsorship programme that supported local students with tuition, accommodation, travel and living expenses for higher education abroad.
Bada comes from a family of seven. His father is a farmer and his mother works as an Anganwadi helper.
For a young man from a remote village, studying in Australia was not something that had seemed within reach.
The scholarship changed that.
The programme, run by the Lloyds Infinite Foundation, was created to give promising students from the region an opportunity to study abroad and gain exposure to a different education system and culture.
Bada chose Innovation and Entrepreneurship for his master’s degree.
Now he has returned to Gadchiroli and joined Lloyds Metals and Energy as a management trainee.
He chose to come back
Going abroad for higher education is often seen as the final destination.
For Bada, it has become part of a different journey.
He says his time in Australia changed his perspective, confidence and aspirations. But returning home and beginning his career in Gadchiroli has given the experience a different meaning for him.
That is what makes his story worth telling.
A student from a relatively remote part of Maharashtra was given the chance to study in another country. He has now brought that experience back to the place where he grew up.
One opportunity can change the idea of what is possible
There are talented young people in smaller towns and villages who may never consider an overseas university because the cost alone makes it seem impossible.
Bada’s journey shows what can happen when financial support removes that first barrier.
His education was not funded only through tuition support. The sponsorship covered accommodation, travel and living expenses as well, allowing him to concentrate on his studies.
The programme followed a commitment made in 2023 to create global education opportunities for young people from the region and encourage them to return and contribute locally.
Now its first graduate has done exactly that.
The bigger question
Stories like Bada’s are encouraging, but they also raise a useful question for India’s education system:
How many more young people have the ability to go further if the opportunity reaches them?
Talent is not limited to big cities.
What often differs is access – access to good education, information, networks, language skills and money.
Give a student those opportunities and the path can look very different.
Bada’s journey began in a village in Gadchiroli, took him to a university in Perth and has now brought him back home.
His next chapter has started here.
RIAAN.TV News Desk
Category: YOUTH DECK
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