At 80, she planned a 6-day Karnataka trip in minutes using Meta AI

When 80-year-old Maya Maker had to plan a six-day itinerary across Karnataka for a geology professor visiting from Australia, she turned to a tool she had just learnt in an online class — Meta AI on WhatsApp.

Within minutes, she had a route covering geology, history, temples and natural formations.”It saved me so much time. It just got me thinking laterally,” she recalls.

Maya is among over 10,000 senior citizens trained by The Social Paathshala, a digital literacy platform founded by Mahima Bhalotia in August 2020.

After 34 years in Muscat, Maya returned to India in 2018 to find daily life had moved online. “I only knew how to use an ATM card to get cash out,” she says.

Mahima’s idea came from a casual remark during her marketing job at Marriott. Her boss, tired of calls from his mother asking for help booking an Uber, joked: “Why are we training employees? Parents need training the most.”Mahima took it seriously. She started by teaching her mother and aunts WhatsApp basics, then built a curriculum that covers what most courses skip — reply, forward, changing profile pictures, QR payments, Google Drive, online safety and now AI.

Classes are held online for groups of 15-20 seniors aged 50 and above, with screen-sharing, recordings and one-on-one WhatsApp support.

For 69-year-old Dr Vineeta Kaushik, a former Central Government medical practitioner, the patient teaching made the difference. “She would first explain for iPhone users and then say, ‘Android people, please hang on, I’ll come to you next’.”Learners now use Google Lens on nature walks, DigiYatra at airports and AI voice mode to draft emails and plan trips.”I don’t feel like I’m running a business. I feel like I’m running a school for elderly people who want to enjoy life,” Mahima says.

For Maya, who went trekking at 70, the message is simple: “When I was 18, I said I would be a perpetual student. I think I’ve proved it.”