For absolutely every conceivable question that is part of any curriculum across the World, there is someone from India explaining the answer on YouTube. A true testament to the cultural focus on education in India.
Education in the country has largely established itself as an enabler for empowerment. Over the last decade though, technology began pushing its boundaries to unfathomable limits – EdTech has elevated upskilling, reskilling, certification, and even casual learning towards democratization, just like it had done with high-school education.
The story can only be upwards and onwards from here. EdTech will begin to rapidly pivot towards submitting itself to user behaviours and creating experiences. Welcome to the VCCircle EdTech Investment Summit – Reimagining EdTech Event. This year, we will focus on how such experiences could be created to enhance our learning journeys.
By Shalil Gupta, CBO, Mosaic Digital
Adaptive and tailored information, provided to the right student at the right time, is the future of customization in learning. The next 3-5 years are expected to witness the growth of such personalized learning technologies. While currently restricted to the B2B world, where AI algorithms assess the learning styles of employees to provide relevant training content, the same will soon begin to gain a foothold in high-school and college education also. This personalization and augmented intelligence will have the potential to normalize learning inequalities across demographics or geographies.
By Prof (Dr) Anil D Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)
2021 is expected to witness investment figures well north of $2BN for the EdTech market in India. Estimates suggest that in just another 10 years, the market size would account for $30BN (now ~$1BN). While the K12 segment continues to garner the Lion’s share, Test Prep, Reskilling, Higher Education, & casual learning are expected to catchup. But what could be the non-consumption markets that predict these high growth rates? The session would decipher the possible segments of EdTech that will drive growth in the next decade.
Speakers:
Akshay Munjal, Founder & CEO, Hero Vired
Imran Jafar, Managing Partner, Gaja Capital
Manan Khurma, Founder, Cuemath
Vardan Gandhi, Co-founder, Exampur
Moderator: Dinesh Arora, Partner & Leader – Deals, PwC India
Often understated is the ability to influence thought with visuals and experiences. Not just AR or VR, even analytical & AI tools are now helping developers create improved story boards and templates for engaging and provoking the learner’s mind. Cloud computing is now rapidly enabling the development of simulation or virtual labs for experimentation, gamification of curriculums, and interactive content – all of which are crucial components of STEM and higher/professional education processes.
Speakers:
Supreeth Nagaraju, Head Education Digital Media - India & South Asia, Adobe
Ranjan Bose, Director, IIIT, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi
Arjun Mohan, CEO, UpGrad
Yogesh Kaushik, Co-Founder, CTO, Learn India Learn (Secure Learning Pvt Ltd)
Moderator: Mani James, Senior Vice President, Frost & Sullivan
By Divya Gokulnath, Co-founder, BYJU's
Living up to expectations for the EdTech market will come to depend on participation from Tier 2, 3 and other rural areas of the country. Internet connectivity, dependability of electricity will continue to hamper dissemination of rich educational content. The true innovators of the EdTech World are fully cognizant of the divide. Until escape velocity is achieved from the rural segments, a combined online/offline approach that ensures low-bandwidth enablement, could be pivotal for success. Innovative ways to overcome the divide are underway.
Speakers:
Krishna Kumar, Founder, Simplilearn
Aditya Natraj, CEO, Piramal Foundation
Kounal Gupta, Founder & CEO, Henry Harvin Education
Moderator: Alok Verma, Partner & Consulting Leader, Grant Thornton LLP
Prof. Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati is currently Chairman of All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
Prof. Anil D. Sahasrabudhe has held several important Academic, Research and Administrative positions at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Tata Consulting Engineers, North Eastern Regional Institute of Science and Technology (NERIST), Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh), IIT Guwahati and College of Engineering, Pune (CoEP) prior to joining as AICTE Chairman. As an academician and researcher in NERIST and IIT Guwahati, and as Director, CoEP, he has taken up several new initiatives for Academic, Curricular & Co-curricular activities, Entrepreneurship, Research and Good Governance. He has been an architect of reforms in technical education at AICTE, which include mandatory student induction and internship, faculty certification and ATAL faculty development programs, creating first ever India’s MOOC platform SWAYAM, examination reforms, innovation movement, series of hackathons, Indian knowledge systems, new funding schemes for supporting students, faculty and institutes.
He is Chairman, Basic Scientific Research (BSR), Empowered Committee of UGC & SWAYAM Board. He is a Fellow of ISTE, IET, Institution of Engineers (IE), and INAE.
He has been bestowed with several awards which include "Maha-Intrapreneur Award-2011" of Praj Industries, Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar (Life Time Achievement Award) from MIT World Peace University, Pune in 2019, Mahatma Gandhi Leadership award from Indian Achievers Forum and CSR Times (2019). He has also been conferred Ravi J Matthai National Fellow Award by AIMS (2021).
Aditya Natraj is the CEO of Piramal Foundation. Aditya is a qualified chartered accountant, holds a master’s in economics and has an MBA from INSEAD. Aditya started his career working with KPMG for 5 years and then joined the start-up team of an internet company in Europe for 2 years. For the last 18 years, he has worked in the Development sector – first with Pratham in Gujarat for 5 years and the Piramal Foundation for the last 13 years. Aditya is an Ashoka Fellow, an Echoing Green Fellow and an Aspen India Fellow.
Aditya also serves on the governing board of the Quality Council of India, the Akanksha Foundation and BridgeSpan India. Aditya was awarded the Times Now Amazing Indian award in the Education category. He was previously the founder and director of Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) and the Piramal School of Leadership.
Akshay has played a vital role in transforming the landscape of Indian education and training since 2008 He founded the BML Munjal University in 2014 and Hero Vired in 2021, prior to which he headed Hero Mindmine. During his stint at Hero Mindmine, the professional skills development venture of the Hero Group, Akshay had a ringside view of the challenges faced by students in the higher education sector and their difficulties to final meaningful employment.
The vision behind BML Munjal University and Hero Vired emerged from that insight, and are centred around introducing academic and industry-based instruction that is cutting-edge, experiential, application-oriented, employability-centric and with an emphasis on measurable transformation. He has played a pivotal role in the conceptualization, design and development of both education ventures.
BML Munjal University seeks to transform higher education in India by creating a world-class and innovative teaching, learning and research environment. This young university which has over 1,600 students has already published over 150 research papers and is on track to filing 30+ patents in this yearIn 2020, the School of Management at the University was ranked 37 by the NIRF, in the same year, the University was also chosen by ET Edge, an initiative by Economic Times as one of the Best Education Brands. BMU seeks to transform higher education in India by creating a world-class and innovative teaching, learning and research environment.
Hero Vired is a startup that offers career-relevant programs, in partnership with leading global universities and institutions, to make learners more competent and industry-ready for emerging jobs and professions under Industry 4.1. With best-in-class short and long-term learning programs, Hero Vired offers overall professional development via skill-based programs and courses that are imperative to a learner’s growth in India’s rapidly evolving digital economy.
Akshay began his professional journey with Accenture in New Delhi and fondly remembers being part of the team that designed the IT infrastructure for Delhi Metro and witnessed the flagging off of Delhi’s first metro train.
Akshay considers the late Dr Brijmohan Lall Munjal, the founder of the Hero Group of companies, as the biggest influence on his personal and professional life. Akshay believes Dr Munjal’s success mantra – Focus on the basics, everything will take care of itself to be his guiding principle in his life. Akshay holds an MBA from Pepperdine University, USA and a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Management from the University of Bradford, UK.
He has been an avid tennis player for over a decade, and he follows the sport passionately. As a marathon runner, Akshay has participated in over half a dozen marathons.
An edtech leader, Arjun Mohan has an enviable track record of building and scaling multi-million-dollar businesses in the online-ed space. He is currently the CEO – India at upGrad – Asia’s higher EdTech major that has impacted over 2M learners across 100+ countries. An IIM Kozhikode pass-out with a gold medal, Arjun started his career with BYJU’S as a teacher and moved up the ranks into a leadership role becoming the VP - Marketing and the CBO.
Dinesh Arora has done Electronics and Communication engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and then did his Masters from IIM Calcutta. He then joined PwC and has worked for over 25 years with the firm and is currently the Deals Platform Leader. He specializes in Mergers and Acquisition, Fund Raising and Stressed Assets.
Gaja Capital is India’s leading provider of growth capital to future leaders from India’s digital-tech economy. Gaja Capital invests in growth-stage technology and technology enabled businesses in Education, Consumer, Financial Services, SaaS and Healthcare. Its recent investments include XpressBees, RBL Bank and Leadsquared.
Imran has 22 years of experience in Private Equity, Pharmaceuticals and Technology services. Prior to Gaja Capital, Imran worked in a variety of roles of increasing responsibility at Dr. Reddy’s and Wipro Technologies.
At Gaja Capital, Imran leads investments in the Education, Software and Consumer clusters. He has been closely involved with Gaja’s investments in Leadsquared (Sales automation SaaS), Educational Initiatives (Ed-Tech SaaS), Kangaroo Kids (Pre-K and K-12), KOOH Sports (Performance Sports), SportzVillage (Youth Sports), EuroKids (Pre-K and K12), John Distilleries (AlcoBev), CL Educate (Supplemental Education) and Indus World Schools (K12).
Imran has post graduate degrees in software engineering from BITS-Pilani and an MBA from IIM-Bangalore.
Kounal Gupta is an Indian entrepreneur, author, and keynote speaker.[1] He is the founder of Henry Harvin Education, a leading career and competency development organization headquartered in Noida, India and San Francisco, USA. Gupta is recognized as one of India’s youngest successful Edtech entrepreneurs and is known for inspiring teenage entrepreneurship.[2][3]
Gupta is the author of The Only Content Writing Handbook You'll Ever Need and has also published 6 research papers including an Award-Winning Research Publication in Six Sigma domain by IEEE. He is also a keynote speaker and is often seen at conferences and industry events.
Gupta is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur and has been featured for his accomplishments in several media outlets such as Aaj Tak, News World India, NewsX, Economic Times, Business World, Hindustan Times, The Hindu, Pioneer, Statesman, India Today, and others.
A serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in Information Technology, Mr. Kumar has a successful track record of building new ventures. He imagined the need for constant reskilling and lifelong learning way before it got established as the only way for professional advancement.
Simplilearn’s humble beginning as a blog to one of the largest global player in professional certification training is a testimony of his vision, grit and execution.
It is his passion for learning and doing things differently that honored him as one of the most influential business leaders. He was awarded the CEO of the year in 2016 by The CEO Magazine and was identified as Fortune 40 Under 40 leader three years in a row. He was also part of Economic Times 40 under 40 business leader.
Before Simplilearn, he was Co-founder & COO of TechUnified that got acquired by a public listed company, Org informatics Ltd, in Feb 2007.
Mani is currently a Senior Vice President with Frost & Sullivan, a global strategy advisory and consulting firm. He has over Over 23 years of proven global expertise - business strategy and planning, transformation, business development, social and digital selling, Program management, Mega trends, business models, strategic partnership & team building.
Mani has held successful roles as growth strategy, transformation leader, Management consultant and partner to CEO’s (from start-up, government agencies, education institutions to fortune 500 companies) across Mobility, Healthcare, Chemicals, Lubricants, IT, Energy, Batteries, Digital transformation, Banking and Finance, Universities & Government & Public Sector.
He brings together a unique blend of strategy and transformation experience with Government and Private sector in -India, Africa, Middle East, South Asia & Israel. He is very passionate and optimistic about support industries and roles that are likely to get disrupted in the future. He believes that Education is one such sector that will undergo a massive disruption and transformation.
Vardan Gandhi (B.Tech) is the co-founder of Exampur. He has more than 5 years of entrepreneurial experience in the Ed-tech space. His entrepreneurial journey started from his college years. He has won many awards for his technological contribution to the startup ecosystem.Vardan is committed to continue providing best quality online training and education to not-so-privileged youth from remote areas. Exampur , which is led by Vivek Kumar and Vardan Gandhi is becoming a great example for social disruption in the affordable test preparation space.
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