The Assumption That Holds Us Back : A conversation with Siddhant Sathe

 What if meaningful impact isn't created by building more technology, but by helping people believe in their own potential?

If we think of accessibility as simply providing assistive devices, we're only solving part of the problem. Real inclusion begins when technology, policy, education, and belief in human potential work together.

Our next guest has spent his high school years proving exactly that. As the founder of Light of Letters, he has combined research, technology, and grassroots implementation to improve access to STEM education for visually impaired students across rural India. His work spans field research in blind schools, publishing a needs assessment on accessibility, building partnerships with organisations like Bookshare and Sugamya Digital Foundation, and designing scalable systems that continue creating impact beyond the founder himself. Soon beginning his undergraduate journey at UCLA, he represents a generation of young changemakers who believe that meaningful social impact requires both empathy and execution.

Joining us today is Siddhant Sathe, a researcher, social entrepreneur, and founder of Light of Letters whose work reminds us that the greatest barriers in education are often not technological, but the assumptions we choose to accept.

Let's dive into a conversation about accessibility, social entrepreneurship, education policy, leadership, and building institutions that create impact far beyond their founders.

Q1.Light of Letters is built around technology, but you've also emphasized training and partnerships. At what point did you realize that distributing devices alone wouldn't create lasting educational impact?

It was during a conversation with a visually impaired student while I was conducting field research at a technical training institute. I was there to identify gaps in assistive technology — in terms of both access and policy — and had planned a series of interviews with students who gave me tremendous insight into the challenges faced by the visually impaired community, as well as the solutions they had already thought through themselves.

But something was off across almost every conversation. Society had conditioned these students to believe that their potential was limited — that the absence of vision had permanently closed off opportunities for them. Devices could give them access, but they couldn't undo that conditioning.

That's what shaped our partnership model. We sought out organisations that didn't just offer opportunities but actively demonstrated what was possible. Our trainers are visually impaired professionals who have reached significant milestones in their fields — one is an economics researcher, another is pursuing his PhD while working in accessibility software. Through partnerships with Sugamya Digital Foundation and Bookshare, we aren't just equipping students with tools — we're showing them, through living examples, what they are truly capable of.

 

Q2.You've personally visited blind schools before designing your three-tier kit system. What observation from those visits challenged an assumption you initially had about accessibility?

This is something even most of my partners don't know about me — I had originally set out to design an assistive technology tool for the visually impaired community. After completing my research, I visited multiple blind schools with that goal in mind, carrying what I thought was a well-informed perspective.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

On one visit, I walked into a classroom while a lesson was in progress. Not wanting to interrupt, I quietly took a seat in the corner to observe the educator — a visually impaired teacher running an arts and crafts class. For about ten minutes, she continued without missing a beat. Then, in the middle of instruction, she walked directly over to me and mentioned she'd be done shortly. I was stunned. I had made no sound. I hadn't announced myself. I had genuinely believed she had no way of knowing I was there.

After class, I stayed to speak with her while she packed up. A few bundles of paper slipped and fell. I instinctively moved to help, then stopped myself — conscious that I was, once again, defaulting to the assumption that she needed my assistance. Somehow, she caught that hesitation too. She told me that assumptions are fine, as long as we're willing to move past them through learning — and that I was welcome to help if I wished.

I was speechless.

And then, abandoning my researcher's script entirely, I asked her something I hadn't planned: "What is beauty in your eyes?"

She said: "Sometimes one must lose their sight to see true beauty."

That was the moment I understood something I hadn't accounted for in any of my research — that every partnership must be mutually beneficial. No matter how much we give the visually impaired community, what they give back in return has always been of far greater value.

 

Q3. Many nonprofits struggle to balance measurable outcomes with meaningful human impact. How do you decide which metrics genuinely reflect success beyond the number of devices distributed?

For me, the truest metric is the number of lives impacted — and that number is always larger than the number of devices distributed. Every student we train becomes capable of training others. Knowledge doesn't stop with the recipient; it moves through peer groups, through batches, through institutions. A single training at one school can ripple forward for years.

That said, I don't think there's one universal formula for balancing measurable outcomes with meaningful human impact. What I do believe is that every nonprofit should be designed to maximise the latter at all costs. At a structural level, a nonprofit has to function like a business to survive — with financial discipline, accountability, and scalability. But at the grassroots level, human impact is what actually matters.

Any founder has to live in both worlds simultaneously. What you gain from that dual perspective isn't just data for donor reports — it's real stories that change the people who hear them: your beneficiaries, your volunteers, your partners, and yourself.

 

Q4. Your research eventually evolved into a nonprofit. Looking back, what insight from your published needs assessment still hasn't received enough attention from policymakers or educators?

The policy that restricts visually impaired students from enrolling in STEM subjects at the 11th and 12th grade level, as well as at undergraduate and postgraduate levels — particularly in Maharashtra — remains one of the most overlooked issues I encountered.

There is a segment of visually impaired students who have the technology, the aptitude, and the drive to succeed in STEM. They are simply not being given the opportunity due to policy barriers. The technology to support them clearly exists — visually impaired students in many other countries pursue careers in the sciences without restriction. The remaining two pieces of the puzzle — access to devices and training — are already being addressed by Light of Letters and a handful of other organisations.

What's missing is a policy solution. A single change at the right level could fundamentally alter the career trajectories of a generation of visually impaired students. That, to me, is unfinished business.

 

Q5.You've worked across research, fundraising, international partnerships, and grassroots implementation while still in high school. Which of these has been the most difficult skill to develop, and why?

Honestly, the hardest skill to develop has been learning to view the organisation as a business.

There's a way nonprofits are typically portrayed — and a way many founders internalise that portrayal — that leads them to treat their organisations as passion projects rather than institutions. And while passion is essential, it isn't sufficient. Without structure, financial discipline, and a business mindset, a nonprofit will struggle to achieve longevity or scale.

The real challenge is holding both things at once: the genuine, personal drive to create change and advocate for a community, and the discipline to channel that drive through a functioning organisational system. Passion alone creates advocacy. Passion under the structure of a business creates lasting impact. Learning to live in that tension — without letting either side collapse — has been the hardest thing I've had to develop along the way.

 

Q6.Your work combines accessibility, technology, and policy. If you could influence one national education policy tomorrow for visually impaired students in India, what would you prioritize first, and what long-term change would it create?

I would prioritise the scribe policy.

Several state governments in India require visually impaired students to write examinations with the assistance of a scribe — despite the fact that the assistive technology for independent exam-taking already exists and is widely accessible. In fact, the majority of visually impaired students I've encountered already own a smartphone capable of facilitating this independently.

Many people ask why I'd prioritise this over something like infrastructure or curriculum reform. The answer lies in something that goes beyond the three dimensions of my work that you mentioned — and that is society's perception of the visually impaired community.

A large portion of Indian society, particularly in rural areas, still operates under the assumption that visually impaired individuals are fundamentally dependent on those around them. Changing that perception is one of the most powerful levers we have for driving both policy reform and private investment in accessibility. But here's the deeper problem: how can we expect society to believe in the independence of visually impaired students, if the students themselves have been structurally prevented from experiencing it?

The scribe policy doesn't just impose dependence — it internalises it. When students are told, through policy, that they cannot write their own exams, many come to believe it. That self-perception is arguably more damaging than the policy itself. Removing that barrier would be a signal — to institutions, to families, to the students — that independence is not the exception. It is the expectation.

 

Q7. You've collaborated with organizations ranging from Bookshare to Kids Connect. What qualities make a partnership genuinely valuable for a mission-driven organization instead of simply looking impressive on paper?

The honest answer is that even organisations working toward the same community often have meaningfully different ideas about how to get there. That divergence doesn't make partnerships impossible — but it does make intentionality essential.

The way I've approached it: you either demonstrate why your path forward is the right one — which is difficult when you're the smaller, less established party at the table — or you show how your path and theirs lead to the same destination, and that helping you makes their own work easier to achieve.

Every partnership, regardless of whether money is involved, has to be mutually beneficial. In fact, I'd argue the absence of financial incentive makes this principle even more important in mission-driven work — because the only thing holding the relationship together is aligned purpose and shared value. If either side is gaining less than it's giving, the partnership eventually hollows out, regardless of how well it looks on paper.

 
Q8. As you begin your journey at UCLA, how do you plan to ensure that Light of Letters continues to grow as a sustainable institution rather than remaining dependent on its founder?

It starts with systems design — and fortunately, that was built into Light of Letters from the beginning.

The way the organisation is structured, the primary inputs required to keep it functioning are funding and outreach. Everything else has been made as autonomous as possible. Through train-the-trainer programmes and partnerships with visually impaired educational institutes across India, educators are already equipped to train incoming students using the technology we provide — without requiring ongoing input from us. For new institutional collaborations, our partner organisations have visually impaired trainers ready to step in. Device sourcing and acquisition are managed by a separate partner. Software installation runs autonomously. Device repair, when needed, is handled by yet another organisation in our network.

Light of Letters was designed with scalability in mind — specifically, scalability that doesn't depend on my physical presence. From UCLA, my role becomes digital: marketing the organisation and securing donations from both individual consumers and corporate CSR channels. The systems exist. The work continues. My job is to make sure the resources keep flowing to support it.

 

About Conversations by Brains in You

Conversations by Brains in You is a curated interview series featuring students, professionals, entrepreneurs, creators, researchers, and changemakers whose journeys offer meaningful lessons beyond conventional achievements.

Rather than focusing solely on titles or milestones, each conversation explores the decisions, experiences, challenges, and perspectives that shaped the individual behind the profile. The aim is to create a growing repository of practical insights that helps students and young professionals navigate their own careers with greater clarity, productivity, integrity, and purpose.

Every featured conversation is thoughtfully selected with the belief that authentic experiences can inspire informed decisions, lifelong learning, and better human development.