India · Loksadhana · 2026
15 study lights for rural Maharashtra
Fifteen Flash Forward study lights support Loksadhana's work across education, skills, health and women's empowerment, adding an estimated 90 learning hours each day.
Evening settles early over Chikhalgaon, a village in Maharashtra's Konkan region. At Loksadhana's boarding school, where students live on campus because home is too far for a daily commute, the hours between sunset and lights-out are study hours. Without reliable light, they are hard hours to use.
In much of India the sun sets around 6 p.m., and school ends around 3. A student who goes home gets two or three hours of daylight, then the evening goes dark. A student who boards gets a longer evening, but only if there is light to study by.
Fifteen Flash Forward study lights, built by student interns in Bellevue, Washington, have been delivered to Loksadhana. Each costs $5.17 in parts: a 3D-printed case, a small solar panel, a rechargeable battery and two LEDs. A light charges in about seven hours of sunlight, gives up to 12 hours of light on a full charge, and is built to last one to two years. Together the 15 lights add an estimated 90 study hours every day.
Loksadhana began in 1982 in Chikhalgaon, founded by Dr. Raja Dandekar and Professor Renu Dandekar. Its school opened in 1987 and reports more than 2,700 graduates.
Today the trust works across 56 villages. Two hostels house nearly 200 students who live too far away to travel to school each day, which is why a light a student can keep beside a bunk matters here. A skills center serves about 450 people a year, and Loksadhana counts more than 140 alumni entrepreneurs.
Loksadhana chooses which students receive the lights, because it knows the villages, the hostels and the students themselves. Flash Forward provides the lights free of charge, and replacements are available as they wear out.
Fifteen lights is a start, not a finish. More are on the workbench in Bellevue, and a school that houses nearly 200 students has no shortage of evenings to fill.
About the Loksadhana partnership →
Partner information: history and mission · education programs · founders' journey · skills training
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