Notre Dame’s Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child and Lucy Family Institute Launch App to Empower Nearly 7,000 Teachers Across India
June 5, 2025—The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC), part of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI), has partnered with the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society to launch a new mobile app designed to strengthen teaching and learning in schools across India.
The Sampoorna App is a core component of the GC-DWC’s Project Sampoorna, a transformative initiative aimed at building, operating, and replicating a Whole Child Development (WCD) model of education in India. The project is dedicated to helping disadvantaged and overlooked children transcend their historic subservient role in society and enabling them to join the formal economy. The Global Center has been actively engaged in India since 2020, working in collaboration with the Telangana Social and Tribal Welfare Society (the “Society”) and alongside education leaders to develop and implement innovative learning models that prioritize children’s cognitive, social-emotional, and physical well-being.
To date, the app will support approximately 6,930 teachers across 231 residential Society schools, equipping educators with research-based tools and strategies to bring this vision of holistic education to life.
The Sampoorna App provides a dynamic, user-friendly platform that equips teachers, trainers, and coaches with contextually grounded, research-based tools, ranging from lesson ideas and implementation strategies to step-by-step manuals and school-wide guidance.
A Technological Solution for Scaling Impact
Since its launch in 2021, Project Sampoorna has grown through four strategic phases—from building consensus and designing a WCD framework, to piloting and now scaling the Safe and Inclusive School Initiative across 231 schools. With expansion has come a challenge: ensuring consistent, high-quality implementation and follow-up support for a rapidly growing number of teachers.
To meet this need, the GC-DWC and the Lucy Family Institute’s Applied Analytics and Emerging Technologies Lab (AETL) developed the Sampoorna App as a scalable solution to promote program fidelity and teacher success. The app functions as a centralized digital hub for teachers, trainers, and coaches. It houses the full set of WCD resources, including manuals for school-wide implementation, guidance for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) integration into classroom pedagogy, tools for staff orientation and professional development, and more.
It also serves as a monitoring and evaluation tool, allowing the Global Center team to track usage, assess engagement, and provide targeted support, even in the absence of in-person supervision.
In addition, a web-based application is in development for project stakeholders and leadership to manage the growing resource repository and monitor teacher progress across participating schools.
“The Sampoorna App is a powerful tool for scaling Whole Child Development and SEL practices consistently and strategically. By giving nearly 7,000 teachers access to practical resources and tools, we are helping to ensure that strong, evidence-based teaching practices reach every classroom,” said Nikhit D’Sa, Director of Research at the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child.
"At the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, we are inspired by projects that use data-driven advancements as a global force for good," said Alli Linhart. "Project Sampoorna is a perfect representation of this commitment. It has been such an honor to work with a team that is dedicated to leveraging innovative new tools to promote and uphold the value of children," she added.
A Vision for Holistic Education, Enhanced by AI
The word Sampoorna means “holistic” or “complete” in Sanskrit, capturing the project’s vision of nurturing every dimension of a child’s growth. From the start, the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child has worked hand-in-hand with teachers and school leaders to ensure the tools developed are practical, locally grounded, and driven by real classroom experiences.
Looking ahead, the Global Center plans to integrate an AI-powered coaching feature into the app. This tool will allow teachers to record themselves teaching and receive instant, personalized feedback based on evidence-based instructional practices. By highlighting strengths and identifying areas for improvement, the AI tool will offer real-time professional development, helping teachers grow their practice and deepen student engagement.
The Sampoorna App is available now on the Apple and Android App Stores.
About The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC)
The Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child (GC-DWC) in the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame collaborates with researchers and practitioners to ensure the wellbeing—physical, emotional, social, and cognitive—of children and adolescents in low-resource and conflict-affected settings. Established to serve as a coherent platform for the Institute for Educational Initiative’s growing portfolio of global child development and learning programs, the GC-DWC creates environments that foster resilience and encourage children and adolescents to thrive. Using an innovative Whole Child Development (WCD) approach tailored to context-specific needs, the Global Center translates research into timely and thoughtful action, adapts research tools to improve the development of learning programs and policies, and activates systems (families, schools, communities) to lift children and adolescents out of adversity.
For more information about the GC-DWC, visit: https://iei.nd.edu/gc-dwc
About the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society
Guided by Notre Dame’s Mission, the Lucy Family Institute adventurously collaborates on advancing data-driven convergence research, translational solutions, and education to ethically address society’s wicked problems. As an innovative nexus of academia, industry, and the public, the Institute also fosters data science and artificial intelligence (AI) access to strengthen diverse and inclusive capacity building within communities. Our vision is to become the preeminent intellectual beacon, inspiring collaborative, equitable, and impactful data and AI innovations as a global force for good.
For more information about the Lucy Family Institute, visit: https://lucyinstitute.nd.edu/
