Prashant Chaudhary wins Rohini Nayyar Prize

Dehradun technology educator Prashant Chaudhary has won the fifth Rohini Nayyar Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Rural Development. Constituted in memory of Ms. Nayyar, a scholar-administrator and an activist on rural development issues, the prize is given out annually by the Nayyar Foundation to noted contributors for social and economic purposes.

Former CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant presented the prize to Mr. Chaudhary on Saturday (October 31, 2026). The prize includes a cash award of ₹10 lakh, a citation, and a trophy. A jury with backgrounds in civil society, academia, and government selected this year's winner. “Mr. Chaudhary is the founder of the CodeYogi Foundation, equipping India’s unreached youth with practical AI and technology skills. His platform runs entirely on family smartphones, in Indian languages, with no dependence on computers, labs, English, or trained teachers,” the Foundation said in a release.

The first person from his village near Meerut, U.P., to enter an IIT (IIT Delhi, 2010), Mr. Chaudhary began teaching technology to students from his village right after graduation. “In 2020, he committed to scaling this mission, bootstrapping CodeYogi. The model has now evolved into a 30-day applied AI fluency program where students use real AI tools for tasks that matter in their studies and family lives. In the last three years, it has scaled to more than 350,000 students across 9 states and 120 districts,” the release added.