My first interaction and experience with Teach for India - Fellows

My first interaction and experience with Teach for India - Fellows

As Part of our Mindtree IGK project, we visited one of the government schools near Naindali,Bangalore on 8/Sep, we were 5 from Mindtree  reached the school well before the scheduled time 2 PM. 

We met 3 young fellows from Teach for India, we were asked to interact with the 3rd and 4th class elementary students. 2 of us sat in 4th standard class room and other 3 were in 3rd standard class room. 

I just sat in the class room on the floor with 4th standard students. The below are my observations from 2 hour trip/interaction

1. 2 gentle men from Teach for India interacting with students in English, the efforts they put in compelling every student to talk in English was really encouraging 

2. Teach for India fellowship program is for 2 years work in one of the Govt schools, it is their 2nd year in the same school where they started with 3rd std students and now they are in 4th std. 

3. I am from outsider can see the difference in class 4 students, the impact of these fellows created in the last 1 year.

4. They have a tie up with Apple where they were given computer and ipad, they installed few interactive education games, help each student understand the problem and solution 

5. Fellows were closely watching everyone, other than academics they do teach other disciplinary. How to encourage other students, help other students when they don't know something

6. Impressed to see almost all the students in the class be able to do basic arithmetic, hardly 1 or 2 students did wrong in basic arithmetic.

7. They were all able to follow basic English conversation, this was the impact of Teach for India fellows created...They force the students to use small english words and sentences in the class

Other than academics, the brief of activities each fellow involve, these are just few from my interaction....

1. All these fellows are graduated from reputed engineering colleges, some of them take sabbatical from corporate to be part of the program 

2. These fellows undergo 1 month rigorous training in Teach for India - Pune branch before they are placed in any govt schools. 

3. There is no content or curriculum been shared to fellows, rather it is completely left it to fellows to prepare and share

4. The fellows are paid very nominal incentive by Teach for India every month, the fellows use their own fund for taking xeroxes,print outs etc from their own pocket 

5. Other than just education, the fellows do take care of school logistics or infrastructure issues. The school i visited, they did take care of fixing grills on the slab, ensured the cleanliness of the environment, play ground to be maintained well 

6. Every week they interact with  parents, they do visit their homes to maintain in case parents don't turn up..They do interact with local citizens, take their helps and support

7. There are volunteers come on every Saturday to extend their support

8. These classes won't overlap with academics, they pick subjects like Art, Maths, English which is outside of syllabus

Summary

• Really heart touching to see the system is working so well with no major follow-ups and tracking from Teach for India Sr. Management.

• What these fellows are doing is completely outside of the box, collaborating with govt teachers and management. I observed, it is working under the hard condition.

• Very simple principle of bringing Parents, Students and Teachers together, building trust on each other. These guys are able to achieve it. 

• We all must thank Teach for India for the change they are trying to bring in, it is not easy. 

• I have seen many NGOs try support the system from outside, the impact of this is very minimal. The change that TeachforIndia is bringing in being part of the system,introducing competent fellows in the system to bring in high impact..

Please do visit their website, spread the news  ... www.teachforindia.org 

PMPC Conference - 2016 - NIMHANS

PMPC Bangalore - PMI Conference  (14-16 Jul 2016)

Concept: Enterprise Agility 

We are total 6 People were nominated for PMI Conference from Mindtree - Project Management practice. 


On 14/Jul 

We all excited our first day of PMI Conference, it was started with Visualizing Big Data 
by 
Mr. Vinay Acharya - Data Science - Gramener 
Mr. Suhas SG , Data Scientist - Gramener 

They both explained multiple case studies that helped big data/visualisation.

e.g.1 They had shared one use case from Chennai Govt. Schools that helped students trend with low marks, the solution could drill down to Name, Religion, Location with low scoring students

e.g. 2 Google search results for a particular question in UK, US , India because of multiple search algorithms

e.g. 3 Stock market reason post annual budget declaration by the govt. 

e.g. 4 topcoders.com or codeforces.com - geographic wise analysis of best programmers in the market 

Few other insights on the life cycle of big data project, various stages it goes through, importance of visualisation and tools/tech. used etc. 

StoryTelling for Agile Business by Ammen from StoryWallah 

I was bit bored of the session, continued with StoryTelling for AgileBusiness by Ameen from StoryWallah.
It was really brilliant talk from him, very well articulated about StoryTelling and its importance in real time world. As per him, Story should always be a true story, every instance can be converted through a story...Only vocabulary is what matters...Always try use a different word that noone used...This way you connect better..

His way of speech, approach of connect to the audience was impressive..

He said Top5 taking Risks
Creativity
Curiosity 
Perseverance 
Innovation 
Collaboration

I liked it so much that i went through his websites and few of his videos after reaching home..

I left the conference at 4 PM by skipping inaguration speech etc..


On 15/Jul

Enterprise Agility is Old News (Mr. Brain McMurray VP - Engg/Operation - General Motors 

Mr. Brain started with GM back ground, how it started, monopoly in automobile industry for many decades in Automobile industry. 

He explained about Fred Hollows - An Eye surgeon who trained non medical doctors in eye operations to reach the solution to many poor/below poverty people..He started a foundation on his name...

ORganization such as "National Cash Registry" dominat company for many years in this field, it was closed in a short span time by a Japanes company who started digital printing of cash bills.

Tesla - became Agile, understood the customer needs, introduction of Electric car is a big disturbance in automobile industry ...lead other car manyfacturing companies to start thinking towards...

he said "People dont by what you do, they buy why you do"

Explained about Holden car making company 

Innovation, change...Are we courageuous enough to disturb the market 

Dont let go past technology innovation

GM - primary focus was only passenger safety, they didnt ask right set of questions to concumers, didnt give focus to technology engines. Continued large engines for very long

Enterprise Agility is not old, it has been there for many ages. Organizations that quickly adapt a change would sustain 

Speed + Simplicity n Trust combined with an emotional connection to why across the organisation 

Key Takeaway - How GM was dominated by other automobile companies proved how important to adopt a change/innovation in an organiztion

Customer Driven Product (Panel Discussion)

Mr. Naganand Doraswamy - President The Indus Entreprenuers 
Mr. Narayana Peesapaty, Founder Bakeys - Eatable cutlary 
Mr. Madhuchandan SC, Founder Organic Mandhya 
Mr. Sundaresan Jayamoorthi , Life caoch for director and compliance guru
Mr. Shivananda Salgame , Founder Guru - G Learning Labs 

Summary of the discussion

1. Mr. Madhu explained his journey of owning a software company to Organic farming journey. During his India visits, he observed many youngsters from Mandhya left their agriculture and moved to daily jobs in Bangalore..

As a first step, he asked few software engineers to accompany farming in the weekends, this helped both Farmers and consumers to come together in understanding a common problem..

Explained advanced methods of organic farming, built trust and confidence in farmers which helped his operation much easy...

His main objective is not to make money out of it, but just create a platform and bring in awarness in farmers and consumers on the model. Goal is to make Mandhya district 100% Organic Farming district one day...


2. Mr. Narayana - Explained his journey of a scientist to innovating eatable cutlary..
His profile is available here... http://www.bakeys.com/profile-of-the-founder/ 

He said 5000 Ltrs of water is needed for 1 KG of Rice.He advised farmers to harvest Jute which requires less water compare to other crops...When he was coming in a flight from Ahmedabad where airHostress gave him a plastic spoon..That was the time he got a thought of why to use a plastic spoon which is not only unhealthy but bring in lot of side effects to young children. Many food retailers bring back reusable plastic spoons...

He converted his idea, manufactured a spoon that is safe to eat...


3. Mr Shivananda - There are many solutions/portals available for students, but in fact not even a single platform to empower teachers. Shivananda beileves that every teacher should have a mentor...a platform to teach better..This will have ripple effect on teaching standards in the society..

http://www.guru-g.com/ 

Product and Service Development by Sanu Samual - VP Mphasis

Mr. Samuel explained about Robotic automation, its imfluence on the current market. 
Many organizations are heavily investing on robotic automation, not only reduced operation cost but gives great accuracy. 

Primary impact will be on BPO/Infrastructure projects/programs. Any operation work with repetitve steps can be automated.

Cognitive Computing Dr. Sandipan Sarkar - Chief Architect IBM India

Cognitive Computing - was used as a friction way back in 70s in one of the hollywood movies where an electronic robot talking to people..It bacame possible in the current decade. A Cancer institute in the US had made cancer curing easy using Cognitive Computing, the solution of multple cancers..applicability and solution is given by the systems. 



On 16/Jul/2016

Art of living, MS. Rajita Kulkarni - President World Forum for Ethics Art of Living

About Rajita Kulkarni

http://artoflivinglifestories.blogspot.in/2010/10/rajita-kulkarni-bagga-art-of-living.html 

Rajita explained about The world culture festival , challenges, risks that they went through..
She explained about strong leadership of Pandit Ravi Shankar in made his vison successful, how 30 000 volunteers communicated each others, org. structure, leadership at every level which brings in great comfort to everyone...

Rainy situation on the day of festival...She explained about constructing stage for Mr. Narendra Modi at 5 PM in the following day due to security concerns..How humble both prime minister and Ravi Shankar ji by explaining few instances...

Transformations on Priority

Padma Vibhusan Dr. M S Swaminathan 
Founder and Emeritus Chairman MS Swaminatha Research Foundation 

He explained about Green revolution..Organic cultivation..importance of protecting the resources etc..

The session ended with an inspirational speech from ISRO.

Padmashree Dr M Annadurai - Director ISRO Satelite Centre , 

Headstart - EdTech Entrepreneur Meet

I was told by my friend Harsh about this Startup Saturday conducts by HeadStart on every second Saturday, this time they have chosen my interesting topic EdTech. Immediately registered few hours before the event. It was at Riveria Food Court, Embassy Gulf Court...

9:00 AM -- Reached there, met few stalls and had just chat with of the participants

9:45 AM -- The first inaugural speech was from Vamsi - CEO , Co-Founder of Vedantu

                    Vedantu is specialized in online tutoring for 8th to 10th std students. Looking very young and dynamic.
                    Very impressive speech and really connected very well.. There was no PPT,was talking from his expereince...young Champ..

https://in.linkedin.com/in/profilevamsikrishna 

                     Vamsi and his few other friends from IIT went to Punjab on a job, 3 of their friends started tutions to local students. Slowly grew from 50 students to 5000 students in the span of 3-4 years. They finally sold it to Mahesh Tutorials  (Very popular in Mumbai)
                     They started their next venture with B2B, where directly providing content to schools and colleges. But it didnt work well because of multiple constraints. They had to shutdown and started Vedantu..which recently received 5 Million funding from TigerGlobal..He smarly answered saying it took 10 years of hardwork to get 5 million funding and it wasn't a celebration time for him rather it has brought is more responsibility on the organization... nice way of saying...isn't it?

Vedantu is a platform where students rate their teachers, teachers can tag their cost per rate depending on their skill set and rating...

He mentioned the below points as his learning from his 10 years of experience

1. Don't over create the concept, just start with handling a small business problem..Regularly take feedback from your audience in the initial stage before plan big
2. Education industry can't be commoditized like flipkart and other eCommerce space..
3. Education is seasonal business - should know when to spend on marketing unlike other industries 
4. It will be slow initially, so have patience 
5. Engagement with student is real critical for success
6. B2C is price sensitive 
7. There is Huge market potential in Education industry
8. Non-Impulsive Buying...

Couple of questions asked by the Audience and his answers, just listing down few question found them interesting...

1. How did you resolve language barriers in Edu space?

     Vedantu don't create content, they use white board and tutors directly delivery lecture to students on selected topics. So no issue of Language barriers..Still students can search for tutors with their local language in the platform.

2. What is their plan to expand Vedantu to 3tier and 4tier cities where people may not be techsavy?

    Mobile and internet is in the reach of 3tier and 4tier cities, tutors too available in these locations. Vedantu R&D team is working on various projects to eliminate barriers of Low Internet bandwidth, bufferring issues while teaching over the platform..

There are few more questions asked by Audience..but didnt find interesting...

10:45 AM : The next session by MobTatva 

I met these 3 gentle men before the session and saw their mobile platform. What they do is..create flash cards in Maths/Science/Social studies for students 8th to 10std...

They explained their jouney, 2+ years .--25000 downloads so far....No revenue source at this point, planning to introduce Premium model in the space..

11:00 AM: VRFirst.in 

This is one beautiful concept to understand how technology can imfluence in educaiton space...

We all know VirtualReality is fast growing market, googlecardboard is an App available..there are CardBoard glasses available for 150 Rs...

Virtual Reality will play an important role in Education industry, where many schools have already started using in schools, where students can visit a famous monument, go to Jungle with their friends and explore animals and birds. Solving a math problem together, Understand how a critical surgery can be done by Doctors...etc..

Nice...Very interesting isn't it..I am just ordering one GoogleCardboard to explore this.... are you?

11:15 AM Jayadev from HashLearn

Similarly to Vamsi, Jayadev also started multiple ventures in Education. His earlier venture Tandem was acquired by Manipal Education. His new venture HashLearn, where tutors available round the clock. Students can connect to any tutor to solve their doubts. It is a monthly subscription model of 500 Rs. per month.

The below few suggestions or inputs to the entrepreneurs who is trying to enter into Education segment...

1. Try to understand what you are trying to solve the problem...is it Efficient or Revenue

2. New platform or a solution shouldn't be an additional barrier to Teachers or staff, this will never work

3.  Each selling will take minimum 3 to 6 months, so have patience and dont spend too much money in sales. Rather directly reach out to Chairman or decision makers to conclude the sale

11:45 to 12:00 had tea/snacks break

12:00 PM VervBeat 

It is a facebook kind of a social network platform to meet Artist, could be Dancers, Musicians, Photographers... Detailed profile can be created and any one can search for them

Finally ended up with a Panel Discussion, the below top gentlemen were Panel Members

Karthik KS, Founder, Avagmah
Piyush Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO, SuperProfs 
Amruth, CEO & Founder, Guru-G Learning Labs 
Dr. Senthil Kumaran, Principal Counsellor - Education Excellence at CII Institute of Quality

Couple of insights from the Panel Discussion

1. Education is not a glamorous industry, convincing angle investors is real challenging

2. Many suggested not to go for external funding immediately, it will put lot of pressure on founders and founders have to spend lot of time for meetings and sharing data pointers to investors regularly 

3. EdTech should help schools/students in improving the efficiency..

4. Working with Govt. Schools or Colleges is real challenging, don't celebrate when you close one deal by paying under the table as there is a risk of new board members coming on board and have to start a fresh engagement

5. Some insights on spending on marketing in the initial stage

    5.1 They all started with Email and Facebook marketing as an easy way of marketing their products

    5.2 Students referral is the biggest marketing opportunity to be created

    5.3 SuperProfs - started their marketing campaign with one of the popular tutor in Charted Account - New Delhi... it worked wonders with very less cost 

6.  87% of the schools/colleges are run by Govt...

7.   Total 5.6 Billion funding across the world last year, out of which only 2% funding provided in India...2016 seems to be promising

8.   Think before going the funding, as it brings in a risk of burning money fast and you will have to run on a TreadMill..

Overall,it was worth attending this session. I liked their insights and their experiences. More importantly, each of the founders openly discussed their challenges and business expansion plans openly infront of their customers...

Except one of the speakers ,rest all are in late 20s or early 30s in their age. There is lot to learn from them...

Thanks friends, hope you all like it...