Thirty nine year-old Mamoon Akhtar, founder of Samaritan Help Mission (SHM), an NGO that focuses on education and empowerment of slum children of Tikiapara in Howrah, West Bengal, and PD Deshpande from Helpers of the Handicapped (HH), a social body that offers training for physically challenged boys and girls in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, are forging the path to a brand new style of education. Their weapons of choice — a high speed Internet connection, a PC, a webcam, a microphone and IT Goliath Google’s social media platform, Google Plus.

“I was introduced to the idea of Google Plus by US Consul General, Beth Payne, when she had come to inaugurate one of our projects. I was fascinated by its ability to allow multiple people to do a webcam chat at the same time.”