The Village That Built Its Future Without Losing Its Roots

On the 27th of July, Sathya Sai Grama witnessed a series of momentous events. By sunrise, an Artificial Intelligence lab was switched on for the first time. By afternoon, teachers who had retired decades ago were welcomed back like family. By nightfall, a legendary voice was singing to a crowd that no longer needed to choose between tradition and progress.

The morning opened with Vedic chants from the Taittiriya Upanishad and a room full of people who had travelled far to witness something rural India rarely gets first, a Generative AI lab, built not in a metro but in the middle of farmland.

Sri Murali Vullaganti, Founder of RuralShores, explained why. 

“Where a person is born should never decide the opportunities they receive,” 

he said, tracing the idea back to 2008, when he opened his first centre nearby. Fifteen years and fifteen centres later, this was RuralShores’ first self-built home and its first built entirely around AI.

Dr Shalini Rajneesh, IAS, Chief Secretary to the Government of Karnataka, spoke partly in Kannada about the drought many surrounding districts were facing, and how such centres could stop families from migrating to cities for work. 

“Skill our young people, our women especially, right here next to their homes,” 

She said, adding that Karnataka no longer needs to measure itself against Silicon Valley: “we are setting our own benchmark now.”

Soon after, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between RuralShores and Sri Sathya Sai University for Human Excellence, turning that intention into research partnerships and student internships in AI for education, healthcare and rural development.

Mr Chakra Mantena of Morgan Stanley called AI “a once-in-a-lifetime technological shift,” noting that expertise no longer depends on geography: “All you need is curiosity and an innovative mindset, sitting right here, you can build solutions with global impact.” 

Sri Venugopal Subbarao of Infosys struck a more cautious note on data sovereignty, reminding the room that “a raw language model means nothing without context.” Thirteen client organisations, from Voya India to Myntra, were then felicitated for backing rural talent long before this centre gave them a reason to.

As the sun moved west, the mood shifted from machines to the people, institutions rarely stopped to thank. The Gurukulam Excellence Awards recognised staff across sixteen campuses, spanning five categories: 

“Best Teaching Staff, Best Hostel Staff, Best Para Vidya Acharya, Best Maintained Campus, and Best Fundraiser Campus.”

Best Teaching Staff went to educators who, as the citation put it, brought back “the joy of learning” for their students, while Best Hostel Staff honoured caregivers who turn a dormitory into “a home away from home.” Two teachers were recognised for teaching Paravidya not as a subject but “as a way of life.” Kondapaka Campus was praised for maintaining its grounds despite operating without trained technical staff, and for raising over ₹50 lakh as the top-fundraising girls’ campus.

Shivamogga Campus, meanwhile, raised more than ₹1 crore through a series of Divine Evening events, making it the year’s leading fundraiser. Each award, small as it looked on stage, represented years of unglamorous, largely invisible work.

The day’s real thread, though, ran through Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai’s own words. Earlier that morning, speaking of why the initiative mattered, he said, 

“My vision is that one day we should shut down this charity, because nobody needs charity, everybody is independent because they have skills, livelihoods, health and education.” 

It was less a mission statement than a quiet challenge to everyone in the room: build things that make yourselves unnecessary.

That evening, when teachers from his own school days were welcomed on stage, he set the title aside altogether. “I don’t feel like a Sadguru at all in their love and kindness,” he said. “I feel like a small boy today.” He spoke of returning, after decades, the same recognition his own teachers once gave him: “I have received certificates, awards and medals from their hands, and today it’s my turn to give it back to them, that is my privilege.”

The day closed with Padma Shri Hariharan and his troupe performing ghazals and devotional music to launch the Tamil and Telugu versions of Compassion of Sadguru. Visibly moved, Sadguru said of the maestro, “There is no one like him in this world”, recalling how, years earlier as a young bank employee in Bangalore, he had used every connection he had just to get a ticket to hear him sing live.

An AI skilling centre, teachers honoured after thirty years, a school system quietly rebuilt from its foundations, and a legendary voice singing of compassion, none of it happened by accident. Every speaker, in their own language, returned to the same idea: a place only grows stronger when it remembers who raised it, even while reaching for what’s next.

Somewhere close by, a first cohort of students, many of them young women whose families have never sent anyone to a university are right now learning to build with Generative AI. Their story is only just beginning. It might be worth remembering, too, the one teacher who once changed the direction of your own life and whether they’ve heard from you lately.