Elango Raghupathy

Filmmaker & Immersive Learning Builder | Founder, Karkei – AR/XR Experiential Learning | Karuvachy Films | ERA Foundation | Climate Education

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Indian EdTech Has Been Solving the Problem It Can Bill For, Not The One Children Have https://t.co/drOPWvHOP4 via @EdTechReview

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

I'm not tossing my phone. But I've started protecting boredom instead of fixing it — for me and my three daughters.

Leave the phone in the other room. Let the kid stay bored till it turns into invention.

Full essay (cited): https://t.co/3xmwHGp1xS

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

In 2014 psychologists put people in a bare room,asked them to sit alone with their thoughts for 15 mins

67% of men chose to give themselves electric shocks rather than just think

We don't need that button anymore We have phones. We've nearly solved boredom

We shouldn't have 🧵

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

I build EdTech, so here's the contradiction I had to sit with:

Engagement ≠ stimulation. It's nourishment vs sugar.
Anything that respects your attention eventually returns it to you. The feed is built never to let you go. That's the line.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Some memories become priceless with time. This photograph of Iyyakunar Imayam Bharathiraja with my daughter Aathira is one such treasure. The man who showed me the path, inspired my journey, and transformed Tamil cinema forever. Rest in Cinema, Sir

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Screens are not teachers. The good ones never tried to be. The only job worth doing here: make the screen serve the human, not the reverse. @the_hindu
Full essay + sources 👇 https://t.co/j9lwxcDCAT

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Karkei is built on the second kind. No-headset AR. A framework (SPARK) that won't ship anything passive. And the teacher stays at the centre — the tech is an instrument in their hands, not a replacement.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Horvath's sharpest ask wasn't "ban screens." It was: prove the benefit with independent, replicated trials before it reaches a child.
The industry calls that a threat. I call it the bar.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

There are two kinds of screen. One a child watches — still, passive, absent. One a child uses — hands moving, rotating a 3D heart, chasing the blood flow. Same hardware. Opposite outcomes.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

But here's the line everyone skips 👇 PISA 2022 (81 countries): modest, structured device use → small gains. Heavy, passive screen time → sharply lower scores.
The villain isn't the screen. It's the default.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Across ~80 countries the pattern repeats. Once 1-to-1 screens became standard (~2010), outcomes dropped. 5 hrs/day of classroom screen use → 2/3 of a standard deviation lower. That's not noise.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

A neuroscientist, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, told the US Senate: Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower than the one before — attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, IQ. Despite more years in school.

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

I build an ed-tech company. The Hindu just ran an essay called "Screens are not teachers."
I agree with almost every word of it. Here's why that's the whole point. 🧵 @the_hindu

[Elango Raghupathy @raghuelango]

Some moments stay with us for a lifetime.

Working alongside Director Leena Manimekalai and witnessing Maestro Ilaiyaraaja create magic has been one of the most enriching experiences of my filmmaking journey.

Looking forward to sharing this special musical journey with the world

[Leena Manimekalai @LeenaManimekali]

Witnessing Ilayaraja’s Valiant Symphony Concert was nothing short of life-transforming. The music carried me to places within myself I had never visited before. In one of our conversations, Maestro Ilaiyaraaja once told me that he is greater than the composer Bach. From that day on, I spent many nights searching online and listening repeatedly to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, trying to understand why he would say such a thing. I also explored and compared the works of Beethoven and Mozart, but with every attempt, my intellect kept surrendering before the heights to which my emotions were carried.Yet there is one thing I can say with certainty: it was the Maestro’s symphonic music that took me by the hand and tenderly led me into inner worlds I had never before visited. At once, I felt every season, every color, every landscape, every emotion — births, deaths, rebirths, and even the silence of the afterlife. I realised what exactly a divine intervention is!!

2025 has been a remarkable year for me, one marked by one of life’s greatest blessings — the privilege of working with Maestro Ilayaraja on my Tamil film. My journey overturned in ways I never imagined: from being an independent filmmaker with no songs in my cinema to making a mainstream film — writing, recording, and filming eight songs under the grace of a musical legend.

2026 marks Maestro’s 50th year — a monumental milestone. And I count the days with gratitude and excitement to present my film to you, carrying a truly special album: a Gen Z meets Maestro musical journey.

Sharing one of the happiest moments I had in 2025. This grainy photograph was clicked when my sister Chinmayi sung my lines for Maestro, for the very first time, for my film.

@karuvachyfilms @raghuelango @chinmayisripaada #isaignaniilayaraja #leenamanimekalai #chinmayisripada #symphony

[Leena Manimekalai @LeenaManimekali]

Witnessing Ilayaraja’s Valiant Symphony Concert was nothing short of life-transforming. The music carried me to places within myself I had never visited before. In one of our conversations, Maestro Ilaiyaraaja once told me that he is greater than the composer Bach. From that day on, I spent many nights searching online and listening repeatedly to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, trying to understand why he would say such a thing. I also explored and compared the works of Beethoven and Mozart, but with every attempt, my intellect kept surrendering before the heights to which my emotions were carried.Yet there is one thing I can say with certainty: it was the Maestro’s symphonic music that took me by the hand and tenderly led me into inner worlds I had never before visited. At once, I felt every season, every color, every landscape, every emotion — births, deaths, rebirths, and even the silence of the afterlife. I realised what exactly a divine intervention is!!

2025 has been a remarkable year for me, one marked by one of life’s greatest blessings — the privilege of working with Maestro Ilayaraja on my Tamil film. My journey overturned in ways I never imagined: from being an independent filmmaker with no songs in my cinema to making a mainstream film — writing, recording, and filming eight songs under the grace of a musical legend.

2026 marks Maestro’s 50th year — a monumental milestone. And I count the days with gratitude and excitement to present my film to you, carrying a truly special album: a Gen Z meets Maestro musical journey.

Sharing one of the happiest moments I had in 2025. This grainy photograph was clicked when my sister Chinmayi sung my lines for Maestro, for the very first time, for my film.

@karuvachyfilms @raghuelango @chinmayisripaada #isaignaniilayaraja #leenamanimekalai #chinmayisripada #symphony