Uttarakhand, known as the education hub of the country faces the challenge of last-mile connectivity, but the State Government is determined to overcome it at the earliest, so that all schools and colleges get connected through ICT. The Government is infact focusing on PPP model and wants the private sector to come to Uttarakhand to set up private institutions, says Radhika Jha, Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Uttarakhand, in an exclusive interview with Gautam Debroy of Elets News Networks (ENN)

What is the overall scenario of education sector in Uttarakhand?

Uttarakhand as a state is very favourably placed. It is the State, which is actually known as the education hub of the country. It’s a state, which has several premier educational institutions. Whether it is the IAS Academy, Military Academy, Doon School or any other school, our government is keen to leverage advantage of such institutions.

In terms of our people and their temperaments also, we have a lot of interest towards education. There are some great personalities, who hailed from Uttarakhand. So, our government wants to make Uttarakhand the hub of higher and school education. The government is also taking steps to encourage private institutions to invest in Uttarakhand. If the level of education is higher, the overall growth of a state follows.

What is the extent of use of ICT in the education sector of Uttarakhand?

We have not done so well in ICT, as we could have done. In schools, we have made a good start in terms of upper primary and secondary education. We have computer labs in lots of our schools. But we have lots of problems in terms of electricity, infrastructure, etc. There are several areas in our state which are remotely located. But our government is very keen. Our Chief Secretary reviews the situation every fortnight, along with the Secretary-IT, Secretary-School Education and Secretary-Higher Education to explore the possibilities of taking the IT infrastructure to the remotest corner of the State.

The last-mile connectivity is, in fact, a challenge for us, but we are determined to accomplish that, so that all our schools and colleges get connected through ICT. In higher education, we have a good programme called EDUSAT. Through this system, our teachers can deliver live lectures to a number of colleges, even if no teacher is present at a particular time in a given college. Now the State Government is in a mood to review the EDUSAT, so that each and every college in the remotely-located areas can avail the facility through the webbased classes.

In what other ways the PPP model can benefit the education scenario in the State?

We are in fact focusing on PPP model. When we talk of facilitating a private partner, we want a private partner to come to Uttarakhand. We want the private partners to also look at our local needs in terms of employment opportunities, in terms of demand and supply, etc. We encourage them and facilitate them, because if you have good educational institutes and job opportunities in your own state, people will not migrate. Apart from ensuring development, we also want to arrest migration, we also want the state’s economy to grow.

How can private players play a role in developing the education sector of Uttarakhand?

Uttarakhand is one of the pioneering states in this sector as far as encouraging private universities to come here is concerned. We have a single-window clearance system available for private universities. We have given lots of relaxation to the private players interested in setting up educational institutions in the hills. There is a high density of these institutions in the plain areas, but there is lack of such institutions in the upper reaches per say. So, the government is pro-actively encouraging the private players to come to the State.

In fact, we do it in a collaborative way. If any private player comes, we make them understand the vision of our government, so that they could adjust to our aspirations. We always encourage private players. However, we make sure that if a private institution comes up, it must give priority to admission of the local people.

Does Uttarakhand see a large number of students going to other states to pursue higher studies?

This is true. In fact, we have a peculiar situation; people from all across the country come to Uttarakhand to get school education, as we have some very good schools in Mussoorie, Dehradun and Nainital. But for college education, our students go to places like Delhi, Mumbai, etc. This is really a matter of concern for the government.

We want to maintain that edge which we have in terms of school education. So our government has decided to set up very good universities. We have the University of Energy and Petroleum Studies, which is one of the finest universities in the energy sector in the country and has very good placements. We have Sanskrit Vishwavidyalaya, which is doing very good in its domain. We need to have many more specialised universities, so that there is fewer outward movement of students.

We, in fact, want to attract people from neighbouring states and countries to our educational institutions. Uttarakhand boasts of the Doon University, which is based on the pattern of JNU. It has very good schools of language and management. It has good school of life sciences as well. But we also want private sector participation.

To ensure quality education for the future of India, the government sought to innovate literacy policy

The National Policy on Education was framed in 1986 and modified in 1992. Since then, several changes have taken place that calls for a revision of the Policy. The Government of India would now, like to bring out a National Education Policy to meet the changing dynamics of the quality education, innovation and research, aiming to make India a knowledge superpower by equipping its students with the necessary skills and knowledge and to eliminate the crunch manpower in the field of science, technology, academics and industry.

The Ministry of Human Resource and Development website talks about ‘Themes and Questions for Policy Consultation on School Education. The entire document highlights the changes in elementary education, improving the drop out ratio in the school, strengthening of vocational education, reforming school examination systems, revamping teacher education for quality teachers, accelerating rural literacy with special emphasis on women, SCs, STs and Minorities through adult education and National Open Schooling system to ensure proper education system in the country.

Ensuring learning outcomes

As per the document, despite improvements in access and retention in elementary education, the learning outcomes for a majority of children continue to be an area of serious concern. According to a research, children are not learning the basic skills during their schooling. Many children who reach grade V cannot even read and do simple arithmetic calculations. The states are implementing reforms such as early grade reading, writing, comprehension and maths programmes in conjunction with defining and measuring learning outcomes. The NCERT has completed three rounds of National Level Achievements Survey for Classes –III, V, & VII/VIII. States have been given funds to conduct state-level achievements surveys.

Extending outreach

With Universal Elementary education becoming a reality, near universalisation of secondary education is the next logical step. Further, universalisation of quality secondary education implies creating secondary schooling provisions of a defined standard irrespective of the location and management of the institution to accomodate all those eligible grade VIII and grade X students, who are willing to participate in the secondary and higher secondary education.

A wide range of centrally sponsored schemes are being run by different secondary school institutions and bodies so as to ensure greater geographical coverage, social and gender inclusion and use of ICT for quality enhancement.

Emphasising vocational learning

A knowledgable and skilled workforce is seen as the most important human capital required for the development of a country. Both vocational education and skill development are known to increase productivity of the individuals, profitability of employers and national growth. Vocational education aims to develop skilled manpower through diversified courses to meet the requirement, primarily in the unorganised sector and to inculcate self-employment skills in children through a large number of diversified vocational courses. Only 7 to 10 per cent of population is engaged in formal sector of economy. The development of vocational education will provide skilled labour force in the informal sector which would further enhance the productivity.

Reforming examinations

Examination reform that focus on problem solving, critical thinking and reasoning skills are critical to improving quality at the elementary and secondary levels. Such reforms will change the teaching and learning processes. CBSE has introduced a wide ranging examination reforms in schools affiliated to it, like for eg the class X board exams has been made optional, a system of grading in place of marks has been introduced. Comprehensive Evaluation has been strengthened so that the students are accessed on an ongoing basis for their holistic development. State Boards have also made efforts to update curriculum and impose examination systems.

Quality teaching

Quality of teachers has been a major cause of worry in the education system and one of the basic pre-requisites to improve quality. Competence of teachers and their motivation is crucial for enhancing it. Several initiatives are being taken for addressing the shortage in number of teachers, shortages of secondary school teachers in mathematics, science and languages, improving the pre-service teachers and in-service teachers professional development, enhancing the status of teaching as a profession.

With the use of Internet increasing on several devices, cyber threats are also expected to increase in the long run. Altaf Halde, Managing Director- South Asia, KasperSky Lab, in conversation with Nirmal Anshu Ranjan of Elets News Network (ENN) talks about the various solutions to get rid of these risks

Tell us something about your security solutions.

Kaspersky have been into the business of providing security for digital assets for the past 17 years. We started with the consumer security segment, then headed towards home users, followed by small offices. After that, we stepped towards the SMB space. Having covered these three segments, now we are getting into the enterprise segment.

Which are the segments you primarily cater to?

Our traditional solutions include endpoint security, which talks about antivirus in a device. So, irrespective of verticals, a virus or malware can attack any of the segments. As of now, we are quite strong in education space and are thinking of getting into the enterprise. Our focus is going to be IT/ITeS, BFSI and government segments.

Cloud is a big thing these days. Do you off er security solutions for that as well?

About a year ago, we did not have a Cloud solution, but now we have two of them. The first one is for the consumers, which we don’t sell them directly. We appoint a service provider for that, like Airtel or Vodafone. These will charge subscription for end point anti-virus security on the Cloud just like it takes charges for a ringtone on a monthly basis. We had recently launched it globally. Now, we have done the first step of tying up with one service provider who is based in Mumbai right now. The MoU is going to be released in 10-15 days time.

With initiatives like Digital India, cyber threats are also set to increase. How do you react to it?

Earlier, we used to sell our solutions only to Local Area Network companies. However, now people have got several devices like tablets, smart phones etc to access internet leading to the increase of threats. Today, there is no solution which can offer 100 per cent security. Nonetheless, what the customer should look at is, if there is a problem, how fast the company reacts to give him a solution, and that is where we feel lies our expertise. We have a very strong team of researchers who are looking out for threats which are coming up. KasperSky is one of the organisations which comes with the maximum number of detections.

What is the next big thing at KasperSky?

For us, protecting our users is the biggest thing. Further, we need to sell our solutions to get into this particular space putting the money back again. KasperSky is an organisation which develops its own solutions. For instance, if you look at Symantec, it acquires a company and thus integration becomes a huge problem. In KasperSky, we have developed everything. Our mobile device management (MDM), data encryption, virtualisation security, system management, all are developed now. So, what we believe in is that we are probably developing everything ourselvses making integration much easier.

We have also got a programme called KasperSky Kids, which we run with schools to provide newsletters or do events in schools and to talk about how to be safe with Internet. We believe in educating the users. These involve not only the corporates but also the children, who are going to be the next generation Internet users.

About a dozen major question paper leaks reported recently has affected lakhs of students across India. The latest scandal of the hi-tech cheating in the All India Pre-Medical Test, resulted in cancellation of the entire exam by the Supreme Court, shaking the moral ground of the academic world, and compelling experts to opine that cheating in India has gone beyond personal ethics to practice such a crime through enhanced use of technology.

Here is a disturbing reality. In the past one year, about a dozen of major question paper leaks have been reported, affecting lakhs of students across India. From the latest All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT) to the Uttar Pradesh Combined Premedical Test in 2014 and Jamia Millia’s BTech and BDS courses entrance exams, cheating has organised itself into an industry. CCTVs, mobile jammers, armed guards, India is taking a host of measures to stop cheating in examinations. Flying squads with police protection, surveillance cameras are deployed to stop students from copying, but still, it remains rampant.

The recent scandal of All India PreMedical and Pre-Dental Entrance Test (AIPMT) shook the education industry, and an uncertainty prevails in uprooting this viral problem. The Supreme Court cancelled this year’s AIPMT after some tech-savvy students attempted to cheat in the examination by getting answers through electronic devices, which were smuggled into the test centres across the country.

In today’s digital times, high-technology forging strategies are mostly being misused by the students, and it seems like a cakewalk for them too, with numerous ideas and several electronic goods available on websites, providing a fodder for the criminal bent of mind.

For example, the ‘Spy Bluetooth Glasses Earpiece Set’, is a product that markets itself at users who want to “pass exams without a hassle, and conduct successful business negotiations overtaking competitors or simply strike others by their knowledge…” In fact, the company has offices in several major Indian cities. Another hi-tech device is a wireless earpiece, which can be placed into your auditory canal for receiving a signal through your cell phone for a stretch of five hours, an ideal device for any agent lurking outside the school with a copy of the question paper.

In fact, these products are known to be extremely popular and in demand among the desperate students who wish to just crack the exam by hook or by crook, resulting in finishing of the stocks fast.

However, this does not mean that the traditional mass cheating is out of fashion or authorities are not part of the these unfair plots. There have been instances in various states where students resorted to violence when the control machinery such as flying squads tried to stop them from indulging in unfair practices of passing examination.

Furthermore, cheating has become so institutionalised that even the rates are fixed. The situation is worse as students take plunge in committing suicide if they are unable to clear the examinations, like consuming poison and set themselves on fire. States like Uttar Pradesh score high on being notorious for such high percentage of such institutionalised cheating.

In 1991, the then Education Minister of the State that Rajnath Singh had instituted the Anti-Copying Act that made cheating a non-bailable offence. While all states have legislations pertaining to examination malpractices, this is the only one specific to ‘copying’ from another student’s paper.

Today, experts claim that cheating has long gone beyond the issue of personal ethics, and gained a prominent position in the system. Today, cheating is a bailable offence. There is an ardent need of a mechanism which needs to be put into practice to stop cheating at such a large scale. The question still remains — should we blame our education system, which has stooped down on a level just to help gain marks and get a degree through unfair practices?

The importance of Internet has come a long way and has been constantly growing in its approach to the end users. Today, the world is inevitably connected to the internet for online networking and operations. Rajesh Babu, CEO and Founder, Mirox Technology shares with Elets New Network (ENN) about the growing usage of Internet and threats observed that pose a severe threat on the education sector.

What is the scope of providing security solutions in education sector?

In future the education industry is one of the largest users of Internet and Advance Wi-Fi mobility communications. This will give birth to the great demand in high speed connectivity and security tools. With wireless connectivity on campuses there is an increase in threats, particularly educational institutions who want to ensure full proof defence against any attacks. New technologies in mitigating such attack by implementing advanced security system such as Next Generation UTM, IDS, APT, SIEM, Device and Applications Control have wide scope in education sector. There is an ample opportunities in providing security solutions. Nurseries, kindergartens, schools, universities, technical colleges, further education institutes and research establishments- no matter how large educational facility but still there is more chances of unexpected and expected threat.

What are the threats and security issues in education institutions?

Education sector has long struggled to find a balance between academic freedom, supporting local communities and cyber security. Cyber security challenges in educational sphere is more. The educational institutions play a great role in their communities, and in cyberspace. Nowadays, most of the educational institutions face common information security issues- insufficient funds, mobile devices, lack of security risks awareness. These common challenges make easy for hackers to target institutions. More and more users are online using unprotected and vulnerable devices. They don’t understand threats and their impact consequence. But technically malicious software (malware), phishing, unwanted downloads, infrastructure attacks, social network targeting, and peer-to-peer (P2P) information leakage are daily potential threats.

Most universities’ systems are accessible through a campus network. Similarly, student records, many employment-related records, library use records, management-client communications, and certain research and other intellectual property-related records are housed on campus servers. As such, they are vulnerable to security breaches that may compromise confidential information and expose the university extremely sensitive research information.

Multiple personas and legacy access: Faculty, students and staff require access to different administrative systems, many of which contain sensitive information such as two students records, performance evaluations or donor data. As the personas shift, outdated and inappropriate legacy access pose security risks when not removed. A student who spent a semester through a work-study programme with the registrar’s office should not retain access that was provisioned for that role if she is placed in the Development Office the next semester. Institutions can leverage their identity management systems to better track who has access to what and ensuring that this risk is mitigated by deprovisioning access in a timely manner.

Rogue data in the cloud: Institutions have already signaled to their users that cloud-based data is ok. However, users don’t understand the contractual protections provided for these services, or the absence of these protections when they adopt free or low-cost solutions simply by signing up and storing institutional data in the cloud. This cybersecurity threat must be addressed on two fronts: educating and training end-users on the security issues and working with procurement and finance to flag these kinds of purchases for review.

Opening doors to the community: Many institutions of higher education view themselves not just as resources for their students, faculty and staff, but also to their local communities. The range of services provided to the wider community include programming, use of libraries and access to free Wi-Fi The dangers for a university or college network can lurk everywhere from e-mail to the Internet infrastructure itself.

Keeping track of the cyber security threats in higher education is not an easy task, but is imperative to protect the integrity of institutional assets, the network and infrastructure.

How can your solutions help education sector to be secure and safe?

Mirox offer a range of services and solutions, at a level of perfection that not many others can provide, from the most ordinary to the most extreme. Our services are always more than satisfactory to our clients. We allott right person for the right job and dedicate ourselves to deliver before deadlines, we forever try to go further with every new project we undertake. Our goal is not to set records or prove a point, it’s just an effort to keep up with the global market and an effort to achieve perfection.

Educational institutions of all sizes are contending with a growing list of cyber security challenges. They are not only responsible for protecting the personal information of students and faculty, but research three institutions like medical, technology – are encountering sophisticated cyber espionage campaigns from overseas governments and corporations.

Nowadays, most of the educational institutions face common information security issues- insufficient funds, mobile devices, lack of security risks awareness. These common challenges make easy for hackers to target institutions.

Moreover, cyber security professionals with school districts, colleges and universities are contending with vanishing budgets, an explosion of mobile devices, reckless users, infected machines, unpatched software and more. The challenge to provide students with the access to the latest technology, while keeping networks secure is an everyday reality. From end point protection to cutting-edge defenses against today’s most sophisticated malware – like APTs, targeted attacks and Zero-days – Mirox has the next generation customised campus comprehensive security solutions such as IDS/IPS, Encryption, DLP, Risk and Compliance Management, IDS/IPS, UTM, Firewall, APT, Antivirus/Antimalware, SVM/SIEM, Disaster Recovery, DDoS Mitigation, Web Filtering, Security Services to secure campuses – from small center to the largest universities

To identify the distress areas in schools while bridging the gap between the teachers, students and parents, C-Link, a cloud-based solution by LearnOn Technology Solutions provides a platform to integrate into the existing pedagogy, ensuring teachers to spend optimum time on students, says Sameer Ahmad, CEO, LearnOn Technology

Could you brief us on the reason behind starting LearnOn Technology Solutions?

As parents, we always wanted to be more engaged in our children’s education than what the schools were able to provide. We realised that while most teachers wanted to really provide individual attention to students, they were loaded with a lot of mundane and administrative work that didn’t quite add any value to the students or teachers.

Classroom sizes were also another issue because with the limited time the teacher had in the classroom it was simply impossible to identify concept understanding for every student in the classroom itself.

While the technology available today did provide a lot of content for the teacher to use in the classroom, there was no way to identify learning levels and customise and distribute content-based on those learning levels without changing the way the classroom was taught.

Therefore, we have developed C-Link a cloud-based learning platform that can be seamlessly integrated into the existing pedagogy, automating a lot of the administrative work freeing up teachers time so they can spend more time preparing learning strategies and plans based on each student’s learning level.

The product is supported by powerful analytics that will allow teachers, students, parents and management to understand various facets of a child’s learning. Teachers can now start to identify the specific needs of every student through C-Link, strengthening the bond between the teacher and the student.

What were the difficulties encountered on the ground level?

The schools we spoke to were all very much interested in implementing our product however, a major concern in getting schools to move to cloud-based platforms are the availability of reliable internet connections in general.

What is the market size of the services offered in India at present?

Experts have pegged the Indian education market to be 5.9 trillion in 2014-15 and growing fast.

What are the major benefits for organisations adopting your solutions?

C-Link benefits all stakeholders involved in the learning process. Teachers can easily identify learning gaps in the classrooms, distribute customised study material based on specific learning levels. The automated assessment evaluations will free up a lot of teacher time and they can focus on developing learning strategies and holistic development of students.

Students will be more engaged because they will start receiving study material catered to their personal learning levels, no more heavy school bags since all the books can now be accessed from the tablet or the laptop, students will start taking ownership of their learning as reports will help them understand their strengths and areas of improvement.

Parents can continuously engaged in their child’s learning and development through the automated reports, letting them know what was taught in class, what their child’s learning levels are and how they have been progressing. Class diaries will be a thing of the past as teachers and parents can easily communicate through the notifications module. Parents can come better prepared for discussions with teachers with regards to their child’s overall development.

For management, C-Link creates a platform to share best practices among teachers, over time the school will create a knowledge database of notes and question banks that will be of immense value for the teachers and students in the future. C-Link facilitates to create a more engaged teacher-student-parent community which will bode well for the brand of the school. Implementing C-Link will provide an opportunity to explore increasing class sizes without impacting quality because a lot of the teacher time will now be free.

What is the vision of your company for next two years?

Our vision is to revolutionise the way technology is used in the classrooms by ensuring the educators are equipped with solutions that allow them to provide the individual attention that every child deserves. In the next two years, we aim to implement C-Link in 100 plus schools in at least 50 plus countries globally.

How you can differentiate your services from competitors?

C-Link is a cloud-based platform that will work on any device (laptop, tablet or a desktop). Unlike existing services, C-Link does not require students to purchase a new device to use the product. We are encouraging schools to allow students to bring their own device.

We believe that teaching methodologies followed by different schools are unique, therefore, C-Link provides an open platform allowing teachers to easily create their own content and reuse existing content available at the school. Our analytics will lead the path of making the methodologies even better since now the decisions can be based on data.

Linking learning: C-Link benefits all stakeholders involved in the learning process. Teachers can easily identify learning gaps in the classrooms, distribute customised study material based on specific learning levels. The automated assessment evaluations will free up a lot of teacher time and they can focus on developing learning strategies and holistic development of students.

What are the ways of engaging the customers with you?

Any case study you wish to share? Our training team regularly meets with teachers and the school management to help them understand the information from the various reports and how to maximise the product features to improve the learning experience for students. These sessions also provide feedback that we use to enhance product features.

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focusing on?

We are currently focusing on the K-12 segment.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

We are constantly looking at ways to add features to the product that will make it easier for teachers and students to use. This is done through discussions with teachers and school management.

JMR Infotech was brought in as a key stakeholder in LearnOn to leverage their global footprint, they have clientele in 50 plus countries and a direct presence in 22 plus countries. With such an extensive sales coverage, we will be able to take this solution globally in a short span of time.

To ease the admission process while assuring placement to their wards to a right school, Rajan Arora, CEO, SchoolAdmissions.in talks to Elets News Network (ENN) about his new platform, SchoolAdmissions.in, that helps streamline the admission procedures of schools and also help parents choose an institution without missing their office.

Can you brief us on the reason behind starting SchoolAdmissions.in.

One of the major challenges I as a parent faced during the admission of my own son few years back has brought my life to a complete standstill and confusion for months. There is no central resource to help parents across the country facing the same problems. To aid parents to choose from choices under one platform led us to start SchoolAdmissions.in

What is the market size of the services offered in India at present?

Around 40 million kids take new admissions in schools every year, out of which 38 per cent enter private schools and this figure is increasing every year. They are our target group.

What are the major benefits for organisations adopting your solutions?

We can see increase in admission inquiries, applications and admissions by spreading awareness about schools, pedagogy and reach out to a larger target audience (parents) who are members of SchoolAdmissions.in and are looking for a right school for their children.

Our solution is a one-stop solution for parents for school research, admission information, applications and results. Instead of spending months doing everything themselves, they can simply use SchoolAdmissions. in to manage the entire admissions process of their child without leaving their home or taking off from work for weeks.

We have joined hands with Corporates to provide our services to their employees. The organisations can ensure that their staff is not stressed or absent during the admission season thus leading to no work loss for the organisation. The entire admissions process will be managed by SchoolAdmissions.in for both, entry level nursery admissions or senior class admissions for employees moving to a new city.

What is the vision of your company for next two years?

Our vision is to reach out to every nook and corner of India and help millions of parents make the right informed decision related to their child’s school education and admission, whether it is for nursery class or K-12 admissions.

What are the various methods to increase the visibility of your organisation?

We are focusing on strategic partnerships, social media and presence at relevant events.

How you can differentiate your services from competitors?

We provide complete school admissions support from verified research to results including personalised admissions management and counselling for parents as compared to our competitors who are more focused on generating unverified content to increase page views. Our objective is to find the right school for a child and make the school admissions process as smooth as possible.

What are the ways of engaging the customers with you? Can you share a case study?

We had recently launched nursery admissions helpline and have completed nursery admissions management service for parents in Delhi-NCR. An interesting case study is of a parent who had just got transferred back to India and wanted us to manage the nursery admissions process for his daughter as well as mid-session admission for his elder son in 4th standard. Our team completely assisted him even though he and his family were still in Canada by taking over the complete admission process for his both kids. We constantly engaged with schools in Gurgaon for 3 months and helped him secure admission for both the kids in the same school.

Getting it right: We provide complete school admissions support from verified research to results including personalised admissions management and counselling for parents as compared to our competitors who are more focused on generating unverified content to increase page views

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focusing on?

Major stakeholders are playschools, schools, parents, corporates and the government. Our focus sector is education especially the K-12 Segment.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

We believe in constant innovation, right partnerships, use of technology and maximum focus on customer satisfaction as the key to market leadership. We are taking various initiatives in this regard and would soon be making some announcements related to new product launches.

Aiming to cater to the internship and placement requirements of colleges and universities nationwide, Internkafe.com provides window of opportunity for students who come from small states. Amit Sohal, Founder, Internkafe.com shares with Elets News Network (ENN), how his company is connecting with colleges and universities situated in remote areas to help the students get the right job

Give us the brief of the various reasons behind starting Internkafe.

While doing MBA from Central University of Himachal Pradesh, we realised that for students like us, who come from a humble background and do not move out of their home towns for higher education, getting industry exposure is very difficult. The main reason behind starting InternKafe was to provide a window of opportunity for students who come from such parts of the nation where industrial exposure is comparatively low, but have the caliber if not more, equal to those who study in metro cities. The bottom line is to bring the industry closer to those who have the employability skills.

What are the various difficulties and hurdles encountered in doing business on ground level?

We try to connect with the colleges and universities situated in remote areas of the nation, therefore, we face a huge challenge of connectivity and how to spread awareness. Although we try to overcome these challenges through offline promotions and awareness workshops, still such difficulties remain and our team works hard to overcome these. There are times when students do not join the internship after being selected. I think that in the service sector, the biggest challenge is to predict human behaviour.

What is the market size of the services offered by you in India at present?

We aim at catering the internship and placement requirements of colleges and universities nationwide. In a short period of time we have managed to make our presence felt in many states and cities like, Himachal Pradesh, Ranchi, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Hyderabad, Punjab and Chennai. Our main focus will always be students in Tier I and Tier II cities who are comparatively less privileged in terms of exposure than their counterparts in metro cities.

What are the major benefi ts for organisations and individuals adopting your solutions?

As our tagline reads – “your perfect internship assistant”, for students adopting our solutions we aim at brining to them internship and placement offers from the best of organisations in their respective field. On the other hand, for the companies as our client, we focus on bringing to them the best of employable talent from different corners of the nation.

What is the vision of your company for next two years?

Well, it can be said that our team is pretty ambitious for a rookie, but it’s the enthusiasm of our team that keeps us going. In the next two years, we intend to connect with at least 60 per cent of students of the country covering Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities. Our special focus will always be the students belonging to remote and interior areas so that they are sensitised to the corporate industry during their study period itself.

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

Ours is a young company formed just a year ago, with a vision “to be the best information junction for aspirants and one stop total marketing solution for educational Institutes and connecting the students to corporate world.” Our team members consist of young dedicated people from varied background who work remotely and are connected virtually. In order to spread awareness about our services, we are consistently active on social media. We also resort to offline advertisement through print media and education fairs.

We are wired to be more receptive to things that are simple and easy. Our everyday life is fraught with instances where we respond more naturally to simplicity in everything. Our innate nature is to cut through the complexity and simplify things.

At the same time, we are surrounded by great yet simple technology products that run on complex technology. Does it sound confusing? If you pause and think, it makes perfect sense. Although these products that we love so much are based on complex technology, they are designed in such a way that technology remains in the background while we use them to achieve our goals.

Speaking of technology in education, we have some popular technology products and platforms that promise to deliver manifold benefits to educators. Some platforms or products like Learning Management Systems (LMS) have been there for a while and there are a few new ones that are changing the face of online education as we know it today.

Learning Management Systems have a plethora of users across the world. Moodle is one such LMS which is popular among educators, colleges, and universities. While Moodle has evolved over the years and found many takers, it poses some serious challenges to user organisations and educators who want to quickly build their online presence with minimal effort and without any complexity. Some innovative educational solutions, such as WizIQ Online Academy are addressing these needs and helping organisations build a unique brand identity and deliver a holistic learning experience to their learners.

Here are some reasons why an innovative solution, such as WizIQ Online Academy can offer great value to users by overcoming challenges posed by a traditional LMS like Moodle.

Time to Market – In the fast-changing online education space, educators are experimenting with educational approaches and technology to find the right way of engaging learners. In this competitive space, the idea is to be online with the right solution as quickly as possible. Time to market or speed matters. You don’t want to be saddled with a solution like Moodle that takes a considerable amount of time to be installed and optimised according to specific teaching needs. You need a server or web hosting services provided by a third-party vendor to host and install Moodle, which is followed by a series of customisations.

WizIQ Online Academy, on the other hand, enables to create your own online academy with a unique sub-domain of choice within minutes and get started with your teaching activities. You don’t need an IT team or experts to set it up for you. It’s pretty much a Do-it-yourself approach to quickly having a strong online presence with minimum effort.

Ease of use – Moodle is far from an intuitive and easy-to-use solution. To fully utilise its potential, you need to either spend a lot of time understanding its in-built features or get trained on the system before you can sail smoothly. The user interface is not intuitive and re- quires customisations before if it can be user-friendly.

WizIQ Online Academy has ease-of-use as one of its biggest strengths. Right from setting up your Online Academy to conducting teaching or learning activities, everything can be done quickly with least possible effort and without any assistance. The simple and intuitive design ensures that even an uninitiated or first-time user can become an expert user within a short time. Using WizIQ Online Academy is a no-brainer.

Affordable – There’s more to it than meets the eye. While Moodle is an opensource LMS which is available for free,you need to make a sizeable investment before you can bring it to a level that is acceptable to you and your learners. The additional costs of hosting, integration with third-party applications, and customisations leave you with a “Free LMS” which is costlier than a paid, plug-and-play solution that gets you up and running within no time.

With WizIQ Online Academy, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your online academy is limited to your subscription plan. Online Academy offers flexible plans and pricing which allow both big and small user organisations to create their online academies without worrying about investing in expensive IT infrastructure and engaging an IT team to maintain it.

Mobile – As more and more content is being consumed on mobile devices every day, mobile learning cannot be ignored any longer. The ease of use and accessibility are some of the reasons why it’s popular among learners. Educators need the right platform to get their content on mobile devices.

Moodle has a mobile app, but there’s very little that you can do with it. There is no builtin functionality to access content. You are directed to Moodle’s website when you attempt to access content and there are no real-time notifications about important events. The user experience is broken with the Moodle app.

WizIQ App allows learners to access content, attend live classes, and get real-time notifications, among others things.

If you have any queries, write to ajayv@wiziq.com.