India, June 1 -- Sufiya Sayyad, 22, is the first from her village Belwadi, in Pune district's Indapur taluka, to become a computer engineer; she is in fact the first learner from her village. Her father Mahamad Sayyad is a farm labourer who brings home between Rs.300- Rs.400 on good days, while her mother is a homemaker. Her classmate Vaibhav Indure, 23, is the son of a farmer, Ganesh Indure, from Shahajanpur village, in Beed district. While Sufiya's parents took a loan of Rs.4 lakh to put her through engineering college, Vaibhav joined his college's earn-and-learn scheme, which he says "not only helped him make productive use of free hours but also earn an hourly pay" to fund his tuition.

Sufiya, Vaibhav and 64 others are the first batc...