Every year, IISER Bhopal conducts a summer outreach program for a week to promote science amongst high school students and to inculcate an aptitude to appreciate the role and contribution of science in the betterment of mankind. Students who are studying in classes IX, X, XI all over India can apply. It provides an apt platform for students who are at the crossroads of choosing a pathway for a particular career. This program has successively attracted more participants with each passing year. Broadly, the objectives of the Outreach Program are to:

• Make science interesting for high school students and opening venues for bright young minds and bringing clarity about their career opportunities ahead.
• Give the participants a flavour of campus life.
• Provide them an exposure to the state-of-the-art laboratories and hands on experience in working therein.
• Interest students further by alternative strategies like visit to the Science museum and stimulating lectures by eminent faculty members from reputed Institutes.

Students from different schools have visited the IISER Bhopal in last few months to see our state of the art instrumentation facility, innovation and incubation centre for entrepreneurship (IICE) and interacted with IISERB faculty members.

Schools/College/Organisations	Number of visitors	Date
MP council of science and technology (MPCST) trainee students	21	24/10/2019
Extol College, Bhopal	35	03/11/2019
Annapoorna Bai Madhavrao Dhawalikar Higher Secondary School of Science, Goa	56	06/11/2019
Ms Georgette Yakman, Founder & CEO of STEAM Education, Virginia, USA	03	29/11/2019
Sanskar Valley School, Chandanpura, Bhopal, MP	30	11/11/2019
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Ratibad, MP	122	15/11/2019
MP council of science and technology (MPCST) trainee students	25	12/12/2019
Sagar Public School, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, MP	100	20/12/2019
Entrepreneurship Awareness Program, BSS College Bhopal in association with MSME	35	27/12/2019
Mini-workshop on Entrepreneurship with MSME	28	03/01/2020

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan is an Ministry of Education initiative to uplift rural India by involving professionals and other higher educational institutions of the country. UBA aims at the indigenous development of self-sufficient and sustainable village clusters in tune with the notion of 'GramSwaraj', as propounded by Mahatma Gandhi. The village clusters identified by IISER Bhopal (in consultation with the District Collector of Bhopal) are Mubarakpur, Kurana, Barkheda Bondar (space after barkheda), Barkheda Salam, Bakania, KhetlaKhedi, KhaarKhedi, KhajuriSadak. The UBA team intervenes to problems related to water, farming, health, hygiene, waste-sanitation management in these villages and tries to find a scientific solution to it. Following are the activities conducted regularly by the UBA team:

• Conducting a survey/Surveys on village problems and subsequent communication with development authorities
• Making farmers aware of organic farming and providing field support to farmers
• Improvement of rural education standards and promotion of girl education
• Promotion of health awareness and initiatives to train people to handle emergencies and provide first aid as the villages have no primary health center
• Conducting cleanliness drives and counseling the villagers on several issues including no open defecation
• Meeting the Sarpanch of the villages (to convince them to construct rainwater harvesting pits through community participation in their capacity both in houses and common places accessible to all) to cater to the scarcity of water
• Introducing the village Sarpanch and other representatives about the Right to Information Act
• Promotion of sports/games in rural areas
• Conducting surveys on family members to understand the problems faced by them in day to day life and trying to find scientific solutions to some of those problems

Prayaas is a student initiative that was started to educate the children of the construction workers on campus. Initially, students volunteered for the same and classes were conducted for these children every Saturday and Sunday. Since November 2014, with support from the Institute, a classroom was built and a dedicated teaching staff was arranged to conduct the classes daily. With the decrease in construction workers on campus owing to the completion of construction, classes were then discontinued from March 2017. Following are the activities conducted by the Prayaas team:

• Women Empowerment Workshop –Prayaas conducts workshops to encourage women of the nearby villages to earn their own living through making paperbags from newspapers, painting/decoration of lamps (diyas) for Diwali
• Cloth Donation drives twice a yearfor the underprivileged daily wagers in the campus and to NGOs in the city
• Provide volunteers for Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyaan (RAA) activities for the development of primary education in the nearby villages
• Conducting Science workshop for the students of these schools to give them an exposure to learning science through
• Conduct cleanliness drives to educate and spread awareness about cleanlinessin two schools in Bhauri (a nearby village) in associationwith Swacchata Ambassador Committee and ESIC
• Fund raising for donation to “Avantika” an NGO to support educationand to support activities of Prayaas