Vineet

Reimagining tech education with a Plaksha touch Every year, 1.3 million engineers graduate in the country from various engineering colleges around the country. Vineet Gupta believes that at least 70 per cent if not more are unemployable because of the way the subject is taught and also because industry requirements have dramatically changed from what is taught in these schools. Gupta, an IIT Delhi alumnus and Founder and Trustee of Plaksha University, believes technology education needs to be reimagined and with the founding of the Mohali, Punjab-based, university, he hopes to strike in the right direction.　　　　　 As Gupta explains, many of the disciplines of engineering — whether they are electrical, mechanical or civil — the way they are taught and applied was relevant decades ago. But, today, when one looks at the engineering applications around us, whether its drones to robotics, engineering studies need to be reinvented. “Also,” as Gupta adds, “the whole element of rote learning to experiential education should also come into engineering.”　　 The world, Gupta says, needs more technology and more engineering, not less, but clearly there is a big gap between what colleges are producing and what the industry needs. “So, we felt that a high quality private effort in engineering education was needed. With those thoughts, Plaksha was born. It’s a collective endeavour. The university is founded by a trust. When we started, we were just four or five of us but we have 80 large donors now. They all contribute philanthropically. These are entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and New York to Delhi and Singapore. It’s a large group and expanding. Once you contribute to the institution, it’s a donation. So, there’s no expectation of any return of any kind,” explains Gupta, also a co-founder of Ashoka University.　　　 Plaksha is coming up on a 50 acre campus in Mohali and is envisaged as both a teaching and research institution. “We have crafted new disciplines of engineering and we are expecting our first class to come in next month. We will also like Plaksha to become the fountainhead for entrepreneurship, new ventures, start-ups, and innovation. Stanford did that in the Silicon Valley, MIT’s done that in Boston, and there are many examples: IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay are also great examples. A lot of entrepreneurs are coming from these places. We would like Plaksha to launch a lot of entrepreneurs,” says Gupta. Also, as Gupta explains, research at Plaksha should be focused around big problems, whether it’s the problem of healthcare or agriculture, or manufacturing 4.0. “So, really the big problems that India and the world face. Can technology help solve them?”　　 Essentially, the three pillars of Plaksha (scriptures say that river Saraswati, synonymous with learning, originated from a “world- tree” called Plaksha, which grew at the foothills of the Sivaliks. The name Plaksha reflects the idea of the university as a tree, from which a river of learning flows endlessly) will be: a focus on interdisciplinary technology curriculum, integrating liberal arts and design with experiential learning; instilling an entrepreneurial mindset, mentoring start-ups and creating an innovation ecosystem; and lastly; addressing grand challenges through research with thematic research centres with industry and government collaboration.　 The first four majors that Plaksha will offer, says Prof Rudra Pratap, Vice-Chancellor, Plaksha, are computer science and AI; robotics and cyber physical systems; biological systems engineering and data science-economics and business. “If you look at all these majors and if you think of the all the engineering disciplines, you will see all these disciplines are hidden in these four majors in an amorphous way. Take robotics and cyber physical systems; it incorporates mechanical, civil, materials, and chemical engineering, all of that is there in that major, and the same is true in biological systems engineering,” says Pratap.　　　 Even in the computer science and AI course, Pratap says the emphasis will be on AI tools that every single engineer needs to learn today. AI is taken as a foundational engineering course for all these four majors. Or, take data science, economics and business: “Everybody knows that engineering drives economies. It makes sense to make data science, economics, and business come together as one major under engineering and technology because that’s what is driving things,” explains Pratap.　　　 Gupta says these kinds of inter-disciplinary training are what industry is demanding. “Every business is talking about digital transformation, but the graduates either they are siloed in technology, or they’re siloed in economics. You don’t have people who can do both. Bio is going to have a big impact on the 21st century; we already see that in the Covid pandemic: the confluence of data science engineering and biology. These disciplines have been crafted with very 21st century contemporary application which is what really the world needs.” There are other elements that will go into making the programme holistic, he says, such as design and systems thinking and even helping engineers’ understanding of society and its needs. And, of course, maths will be central to all the programmes.　　 The first batch of 100 students is all set to start at the new campus of Plaksha in early October. The course fee for the fully residential campus education per year will be ₹8.5 lakh, though Gupta is quick to add that 25 per cent of students will be on scholarships. Plaksha has raised ₹690 crore in donations so far. The campus will come up in five or six phases by 2035. “We are fully funded for the first two phases. We think it will be a total investment of about ₹2,000 crore. We continue to raise more money. And, so far so good, but yes, institution building, especially of the sort that we are trying to build, requires major capital investments, and we are geared to do that.”　 By 2023 the university will finish the first two phases and by that time it would have about 1,500 students and a hundred-odd faculty. “We are hoping that Plaksha over time will become the torchbearer of what technology

“India’s demand for foreign education remains unscathed despite the pandemic” – says Vineet Gupta of Jamboree Education Prior to 2020, before our lives were turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic, over 750k Indians had preferred to go abroad for higher education in 2019. This number dropped to about 250k in 2020 owing to the pandemic but as per a report from consulting firm Redseer, it could reach well over 2 million by 2025. “Second only to China, India has an ever-growing number of young students who want to explore the possibilities of education and work abroad and I don’t see this demand going down any time soon. ” says Vineet Gupta of Jamboree Education Pvt. Ltd, which has helped over 200,000 Indian students to prepare for entrance tests abroad. Factors contributing to the demand for foreign education There are several aspects leading to demand for foreign education among youngsters in India. Working with several thousand students in a calendar year at Jamboree, we have identified a few key pointers that are contributing to this phenomenon, explains Vineet: The coronavirus was expected to affect things but in turn it has further accelerated the acceptance of hybrid mode i.e using a mix of physical classes plus video conferencing tools to access education Decreasing gender divide in the society allows for young women to explore the same opportunities that were earlier only available to men. This is significantly contributing to the demand. Parents today want their children to have the best education and the fact is that at a general level, foreign universities offer a superior quality of education compared to what is available in the country. Superior income levels and better access to education loans have become contributing factors. Awareness among youngsters about possibilities abroad is at an all time high. An education abroad helps in securing a job abroad and better career prospects, which to many youngsters is a more enticing proposition than being in the country. Capacity shortfall in the education sector is another major factor. “The limited seats and the sheer number of students applying for these seats particularly in technical education in India, makes it extremely difficult for aspiring students to pursue the line of study they want. Foreign education hence, becomes the alternate option or sometimes the only option for many students,” opines Vineet Gupta of Jamboree Education Pvt. Ltd The pandemic saw the emergence of discoverability startups like Collegify, Azent, Admitkard, Leap etc. that helped aggregate top schools, courses and opportunities in one platform further fueling the demand. Leap raised $75 million in June 2022, which took their total raise to $150 million Concluding thoughts As borders open and governments around the world find ways to contain the virus, aspiring students will be the first to pack their bags and go abroad to fulfill their aspirations. “While it is endearing to see thousands of students go and live their dreams abroad, the concerns relating to brain drain and lack of high quality education in India cannot be ignored. There is a growing need for more world class institutions and for transforming India’s higher education sector to meet the demands of India’s young population. This will require an abolishment of bureaucratic hurdles that plague the system and a more effective collaboration between government and industry. Unless this happens, the higher education sector will not prosper”, concludes Vineet Gupta. Source – Indian Business Times 

“Ed-tech not entirely a bubble, will play key role in modernizing Indian education,” says Vineet Gupta, Jamboree Education When the pandemic arrived, education was subjected to a sudden disruption, which no one saw coming. With a virus on the loose and close contact touted as the reason for the spread, schools and universities across the world had to close their doors, perhaps for the first time in modern history. “However, as a silver lining for ed-tech companies, this largely accelerated the adoption of ed-tech in the country with parents scrambling to find the best possible solution for their children,” explains Vineet Gupta of Jamboree Education Pvt. Ltd Success mismanaged? Why are ed-tech startups struggling this year? In 2021, over 4 billion dollars were injected into ed-tech making it the third most funded sector in India. However, a year later we hear about companies shutting down, workers getting laid off and teachers being asked to leave the platforms. “These are testing times for startups all across the board and ed-tech companies are primarily affected due to their inability to prepare for a world returning to normalcy,” opines Vineet Gupta. The sudden reality check can be attributed to several factors: The hyper aggressive spends taken by the ed-tech companies: A dollar too many may have been spent on advertising and marketing to wrestle for market share. Through the entirety of the pandemic, we would see ed-tech ads everywhere. ed-tech companies also struck multi million dollar endorsement deals running into years, which may be difficult to honor, in times of a funding crunch like the one we are in right now. While accessibility was supposed to be a strong suit, the paywalls that amounted up to almost a year of private education started acting as a deterrent for many students and parents. “One has to understand that a high percentage of the middle class don’t pay the amount of fees in school compared to what they were expected to shell out for a yearly ed-tech The ed-tech companies lost out on a key consumer base because pricing was not their strong suit.” says Vineet Gupta. The acquisitions and hiring sprees: Decisions made by the top brass to go on aggressive acquisition sprees of smaller players and offering “too good to be true” compensation packages to poach talent left a massive hole in finances. The constant negative news cycle also clearly had an impact: The media, especially social media, was always rife with stories, about how these companies weren’t treating employees right, how the courses rarely helped or how some of them had hired teachers who made gaffes, that went viral for all the wrong reasons and brought further disrepute to the industry as a whole. The success of the largest vaccination drive in the world and how India accelerated towards normalcy faster than expected: India’s quickly rolled out vaccination drive and its success in containing the virus to an extent led to schools reopening by the fall of 2021 What’s next for Ed-tech? Ed-tech companies will have to find ways to evolve during this slowdown. Byjus has already diversified and opened physical centers and Unacademy too has announced setting up coaching centers nationwide with the first one to come up in Kota, the hub for coaching centres. Though, this move by the latter did not go down too well with traditional coaching centers, as was evident through a widely circulated video in which the founder of a reputed coaching giant warned all their teachers against joining any of these ed-tech companies. Industry experts feel that ed-tech companies need to understand their role as a support mechanism rather than a full-fledged replacement for learning. They also need to be better prepared to deal with turmoil as it is evident that the industry as a whole, failed to successfully navigate through the first stress test that came their way. ed-tech has a key role to play in providing access to education to millions of children around the country who still have no access to any form of education. This segment could perhaps  be their next target audience but they will have to repurpose their entire business model in order to cater to this group. Partnerships with Government agencies would help in this regard with ed-tech companies receiving contracts to educate children who are outside the education system’s reach. “ed-tech rules when physical classes were shut. In the long run, both the offline and online models of education will go hand in hand as ed-tech consolidates and finds its real place in the system.” concludes Vineet Gupta.  Source: Mid-day

Plaksha University In 2015, Vineet Gupta and several prominent technology entrepreneurs came together with the idea of building an institution that would re-imagine science and technology education for India and the world. Their belief was that the current disciplines of engineering education and the way engineering is taught, are inadequate to prepare students for twenty first century challenges. With this vision, Plaksha University was set up as a greenfield institution and opened in 2021. Plaksha University aims to make engineering education inter-disciplinary, make education experiential and hands-on and train students to solve some of the most pressing challenges faced by society. Plaksha is located in Mohali, Punjab right next to the Chandigarh International Airport. It has a fifty-acre campus which will be built over the next seven to eight years. Plaksha University has attracted some of the best faculty from across India and the world and offers four distinctive undergraduate programs across artificial intelligence, economics and data science, bio-systems and cyber physical systems. Its flagship Mater’s program called the Technology Leaders Program aims to train students to lead organization and use technology to solve some of the toughest problems that our planet faces. Global Partnerships & Collaborations Plaksha University is one of India’s biggest collective philanthropic endeavors to establish a world-class technological institution. With a focus on sustainable farming, accessible healthcare, sustainable urban ecosystems and the water-food-energy hub, the higher education institute is dedicated towards practicing research and developing novel solutions to the social and community issues confronting our nation. From the first day of the four-year B.Tech degree, students begin this integrated, project-based journey, working on various projects along the way. Plaksha University has collaborated with world’s leading universities on curriculum development, implementation, student and faculty exchange, and joint research. Among the esteemed institutions, Plaksha has partnered with UC Berkeley in 2019 when the agreement was signed by Vineet Gupta, Co-Founder & Trustee of Plaksha University and Dr. Ikhlaq Sidhu, Chief Scientist SCET, UC Berkeley. The collaboration aims towards cooperative research initiatives and academic programmes as well as faculty, student and post-doctoral exchanges, among other things. Plaksha group has also signed MoU with SRI International in 2018. The partnership includes the establishment of cooperative Research and Development facilities to establish the link between applied science and innovations for the market. Plaksha University has teamed up with IISc Bangalore and the partnership involves faculty and student transfers, curriculum development, cooperative research, conferences, publications, and professional development for academics. Robotics and cyber-physical systems, sensor technology and digital health initiative are the initial areas of concentration in this collaboration. Additionally, they have formed alliances with IIT Kanpur and Purdue University for curriculum planning, exchange programs, and collaborative research.