Interviews

“The main thing is learning but with which perspectives it is on to you,” says Neetu Sharma, Founder and Principal, Million Miracle Pre-School, Jaipur in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan What has been the learning from your session and the time which you have spent at the event today? The event was very interactive and it was a great learning from all the learned peoples we were sharing the stage. We were getting upgraded mentally and by spiritual learning which really a person needs at this time. Being a pre-school teacher what I really feel if you are having an energy of a 150 percent then we can deliver the hundred percent to the children because children are the most energetic persons, to engage those brain in a very positive manner we have to see how we can upgrade them on ourselves, first ourselves in a better way by learning what is newer to get upgraded with them to their levels. Children don’t have a lot of patience they are very quick learners and for them regular reinforcement is very much important so whatever we are teaching is that a life skill or it is a social thing we are teaching them or anything which is from mythological things or educational. Our students have to be self-driven they should not be dependent on anyone they should know what is right, what is wrong. They should know how to use the things wisely. So, I have learned these all things lot from here we were like the children with the experienced peoples so let’s see how we can apply them and next time whenever we meet I can assure you with some more good betterments in ourselves even and thank you for such a good platform you have given to us. What has inspired you to become an owner of your own brand? When we were working with the other brand also, they were the first gurus, I have learned a lot of things from them but when you work we can’t find that if this thing would have been to this level it would have been easier because practically doing and having in the books is entirely different. So, when we come on the grounds we find that there are some limitations to it just work with that free zone and then I find if the children at this age get that plight of knowledge at a full side, full learning they will of course bloom like anything. So, to working with them with a free side that without the foundation that we have to cover this, that you have to do this way only no I don’t think learning has a particular pattern learning is something which every person learns in a different way. If I say do this, means a child can take it in any way in whichever mode or state he is. It is not that he is listening if I say write ‘A’ he will take my instruction, but in my school the child can write in the air also he can write in the copy, some children will like to write on wall so this is the free liberty side what we are giving to the child that they should learn how to write. The main thing is learning but with which perspectives it is on to you. I say best teacher is the one who doesn’t teach how she knows it is the one who dealt herself according to the child how she is making interesting one for the children. We have been managing really hard to execute this event and we have been doing this from last one and a half years recently we celebrated our first anniversary any message or any advice would you like to give to ArdorComm Media? I should say ArdorComm Media is doing a good job they are getting so many big peoples at a single platform. I can understand from my level being an entrepreneur it becomes very difficult to cope up with so many people with their busy schedules and of course you are doing great work, giving us this platform especially the teachers and educators who are actually the foundation layers and if we are on the same stage and we are able to connect with the things over the higher educations it will become something else only, so thanks goes to the ArdorComm Media who is giving such a good platform to us.  

“We need to skill our teachers as well because they are coming from the 80s and then we are going to teach in the 21st century children and that’s a huge gap in between,” says Hema Harchandani, Founder & Managing Director, Canvas International Group in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan What is the message you would like to give specially to the people who are already running schools and those who are eying to be one of the owners of the school? I think two things are the major agenda which I also speak about, one is the parent partnership program which has to be very dignified way and then every school has to design in a such a process because we are focusing on the new skill-based program most of the time. So, the parents should also be aware of that what are the skills we have and what we are going to teach our children that’s one major fundamental thing because then only the collaboration work together, as a school as an educator as a parent. Another part I always emphasis on is the training process, the training process has to be the school side in a very high side because the way today the recruitment is happening we need to skill our teachers as well because they are coming from the 80s and then we are going to teach in the 21 century children and that’s a huge gap in between. So, first we have to skill ourselves and then only those strategies have to be put on. Earlier we used to talk about teacher training program now is it like teacher training and skilling program? Yes, it’s more into a skill-based program, I think the teachers who are already coming from they know how to teach the subjects but they need to enhance their levels because the children have skill set better than the teachers so they should think out of the box. This is not a classroom sitting kind of thing there has to be life experience even in the science, math any language we are talking about those things has to be in an experienced way that’s what we have to talk about. Would you like to share any experience as a live example of your own school? I always remember one thing is when you take them outside from your school campus most of the things whenever we the teachers are doing inside the campus they are okay with that. Take them out take that risk along with you, yes definitely there is a risk involved but I think beyond the campus if you take the children then you see the ‘wow’ thing is happening with the children so think about those strategies, think about the openness don’t focus on the numbers, numbers will come automatically. We all have united here for the New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards, what does the word new normal stands for you? I think new normal is adjusted now, we all are adjusted after covid in the new normal. I think new normal for me has done wonders personally as well as professionally. One thing I’ve learned from after covid is patience. Whatever you do things will happen their own way. So, I think that one message I really wanted to give is be calm, be patient things are going to happen as per your plan don’t be impatient and rude for the anybody else so that’s what it is. When we gather in a program like this where all the stakeholders from the same fraternity like academia, industry and government are present, what should be an outcome of certain forums? School and education is a community business we need to understand, it’s not be, okay the government only going to do that or as a owner I’m going to change it or as a parent I have to, every stakeholder has to come on the forum and then talk about. At the end of the day we have to focus on what are the end results so suppose today we are talking here so many concepts, so many things. I think everybody has to take it forward in their school the strategies we gather here, we discuss. If I am doing something different and somebody else is doing we should start, this has to be exchanging program instead of okay no I am doing this, I am very rigid on my strategy which should not be. So, in any conference we are going be ready for the openness be ready for the learning thing and be ready for taking it forward. I’m glad to share that we’ve recently celebrated our one year of existence, any message would you like to pass on to ArdorComm Media? I think Chandan and the team is doing excellent work and I know him for last couple of years now and I am sure you are doing such a great work and keep doing it.  

“Learning has to be orchestrated where the child experiences learning because you can’t teach a child he has to learn,” says Geetika Bahuguna, COO (Services), Millennium Education Group in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan As you have moderated a very well defined and an informal segment which is now formerly coming under the umbrella of NEP as well, what has been your experience two years before and now? I think there has been a lot of change in the mindset of people and also the confidence level that you can embrace technology because they have seen it happening during the pandemic now it’s only about how do you leverage it better, how do you actually harness the potential of technology. If I talk about the pre-primary segment that has been untouched so we haven’t literally leveraged it in a physical school so now it’s about taking it out from the virtual mode and bringing it into the physical school and creating maybe a hybrid or an integrated model where technology becomes a very innate and a critical component of the entire pedagogical cycle. Preschool segment has been considered as a very experiential and a lot of hygiene should be maintained over the years, people are very sensitive in selecting a brand or a school, how are you taking your brand in that way? See, we are a very child safety focused organization so our processes are very well defined. We have all the structures and processes because you can’t actually run a chain if you don’t have that and there are continuous regular audits and so whatever is being done in this robust training which happens and closed monitoring of the schools. So, everything is catered for and taken care of. If anybody is opting for a franchisee of a Preschool what should be kept in mind like top key pointers for selecting a brand? It is about who’s running, what is the credibility of the organization, what is their pedagogy, what is their approach and what is their connect with the parents. Its credibility would be based on the experience of the parents or whatever anecdotal evidences are there plus the pedagogy would define how the child is actually being exposed to learning because that is very critical like what we had been hearing that it has to be social emotional experiential all that. How do you place immersive learning in the Preschool segment? It is all immersive you cannot have learning which is not immersive, the child has to be immersed in learning and the learning has to be orchestrated where the child experiences learning because you can’t teach a child he has to learn. So, it is very constructivist at that particular stage also child will learn if he is interested, he is curious, he’s engaged so that process of making, ensuring these three conditions are met is through immersive learning, so it cannot be any other way. From an educator point of view, what should be the criteria of selecting a teacher for Preschool? Teacher is a passion her connect in fact we were also figuring out with our HR in case we could actually, figure out what is the EQ component because it is all energy. See, content comes later what you require is a true love, care, passion and the Zeal to keep learning. We have all gathered at “New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards”, what does the word New Normal for you stands? New Normal is one is the traditional definition because we’ve gone through the VUCA period so this is like practically a new normal otherwise also I think what somebody said that every day is a new normal we are evolving at a very fast pace so I think it will continue, it is going to be the only constant. Recently we have celebrated our one year of existence and it’s been the first anniversary of ArdorComm Media, any message and good wishes you want to share with us? All the best and congratulations. I was there at the last time also and I’ve seen that passion, energy and the commitment in the team and you’ve been able to gather all the thought leaders. Please continue doing this because these are forums which give each other that confidence and the moral support because this education community has to move together and there has to be partnership.

“Through Shroffism I’m trying to reach to the world and say that all of us are born with innate intelligence, we have the energy within us that we need to tap,” says Dr. Manjula Pooja Shroff, MD and CEO, Kalorex Group, in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan There has been a lot of ups and downs in the whole education sector especially in school education, what are your observation of last three years, pre-pandemic and post pandemic? Education has become slightly regulated as a sector, so apart from K-12 even preschool regulations we have been talking about it’s also been an area that has attracted a lot of attention, right from the RTE to the NEP. So much happening in education now, as if that was not enough on a policy side, the pandemic threw up different challenges. So, challenges of new age kind of learning because children, they’re too young to adjust to such a big thing and in these two years the ways of learning, the ways of how we can reach out to children has completely changed. It really is no longer what it used to be and devices have become so central to children’s lives that we are actually re-adapting to the New Normal very quickly. According to you what does ‘New Normal’ stands for? Many things, New Normal stands for an opportunity for us to do things in a better way. It stands for us to move away from Pure cognition-based learning to multiple intelligences such as mental, physical, social-emotional. I think children are like sponges they will completely absorb what we give them and if we just you know use this one vertical of cognition we are not tapping that entire potential that they’re capable of. So, I think it’s a great opportunity because there’s so much content available digitally, anyways living a digital life shall we refocus and then bring in multiple intelligences and make a wholesome individual. Any message for teachers and educators for their kids and children at school? So, the teacher has to first change, they have to change their way of thinking before they can execute, implement or demand change from children what is internal is external, if the teachers don’t believe in what they are doing, they really will not be able to reach out to the students. My request to teachers will be to start being more humane in their approach to teaching and less procedural and transactional ritual, start focusing on more psychology, positive psychology, emotions, the social quotient, the spiritual quotient, the emotional conscience, the physical quotient and of course the mental quotient. But please do not leave out all these quotients because then the product the child will become lopsided. What is Shroffism? How do you define it? I believe that there is a greater power on Earth and that is the universal power, which is higher energy. Through Shroffism I’m trying to reach to the world and say that all of us are born with innate intelligence, we have the energy within us that we need to tap, somehow in our rat race call it in our day-to-day existence it talks to us but we push it away it’s time to get back it’s time to talk to our inner voice so that we are completely anchored. You are the subject of the book ‘Success Mantras and Musings’. Has this also inspired you to become an author sometime soon? I don’t know really. I cannot commit this now. But, I can see this that we’ll have to write more and more books, because books have a very powerful way of being able to tell a story. I see that what we are talking about new age education, how to teach, parenting is a big challenge. I do a lot of work for parenting, I run a series called conversations for children for teens for pre-teens, I see that we may have to write books like that for actually coaching and hand-holding parents in the New Normal. In digital era, there is the shift going towards the eBook. We should develop a habit back to read physical books. I think everything is about optimization. Digital is here to stay, having said that the things which you can teach through theory and practices that fleeting digital cannot do so things have their own perspectives what the digital can do is concede a thought but in order to grow the tree you will need theory and practicals. Any message would you like to give to the readers who got inspired from reading your book? Any book which you remember you got inspired from? There are several books that have inspired. It’s a great way to learn by reading biographies.        There are many inspiring stories of industrial people, political people, social workers, or people from royal families, if you read the biographies it will provide insight to life. I think biographies are a great way to learn from others’ lives. How does certain kind of forums or symposiums help? Where you see the edtech players, the academicians, teachers and even the government people at common platform? I think it’s a great opportunity. Everybody is a part of the ecosystem, if everybody doesn’t play the role we don’t get a whole. It’s like if by coming here we see the whole pizza, one pie education, which we are, the people who are implementing, there are policymakers who bring in one part of the pie, there are edtech people that really make our lives easy, there are finances that are helping further, then there are school supplies. So unless that whole ecosystem is complete you don’t have the whole pizza to eat. Places like this provide that whole pizza. Message for the growing ‘ArdorComm Media Group’? All the very best! I mean it for you and your

“Being an ISRO scientist, hard skill I will give 70 percent weightage and 30 percent yes definitely required a soft skill, that is the ratio a university leadership has to plan and accordingly students should be groomed,” says Prof. (Dr.) P. M. Udani, Director General, CVM University, Anand in an interview with Chandan Anand, Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Would you like to highlight some of the initiatives under your leadership which is happening in CVM University? See when NEP was rolled out in 2020 and what we have done in last two years is immediately we planned at least 20 to 25 minor degree programs having a capsule of a four courses, one mini project an entire credit structure is 18 to 20 credit and this we have started offering since last one year and this year we are rolling out another 10 minor degrees and few minor degrees are curated with the help of Coursera also because we have 6000 license of Coursera and the kindness of the CVM management is we are not going to charge a single paisa for minor degree offered from CVM University. For example, a 20 credit is equivalent to one semester course so when you are offering minor degree of 18 to 20 credit to the student and not charging anything that means you are giving a scholarship of one semester to the student, that is the greatness of the CVM University. How is hard skill and soft skill important along with the regular pedagogy and regular curriculum? Being an ISRO scientist my inclination will be always towards hard skill. Soft skill is required in today’s world because a remote environment you are collaborating with many colleagues and your product design also may be done at different places so that kind of things are required but if a mechanical engineer is not able to assemble or design a machine then his soft skill has no value. So, being an ISRO scientist, hard skill I will give 70 percent weightage and 30 percent yes definitely required a soft skill that is the ratio a university leadership has to plan and accordingly students should be groomed. But if I had to restructure my entire curriculum my preference would be let us have a 30 percent classroom teaching 40 percent lab so that is core curriculum where you have to take examination as per the curriculum and framework of the country and 30 percent should be only startup and innovation where there is no curriculum there is no standard set of examination and you can guide students just like a research supervisor is getting a research student you have a unique problem for a group of students and they will be demonstrating their hard skills and soft skills and everything and that is a 30 percent weightage in an entire curriculum and that 30 percent weight will relieve student also and faculty also from that conventional kind of a teaching learning process that is what everybody should do it but we are going to attempt from next academic session. I’m sure you must be having an alumni association also do you do a regular program which encourages the current people who will be coming out, who have faced last two years of difficulty for a motivation or an industry reaction? See university was started in 2019, it is a two years old university but our most of the institutions have legacy of 70 years, 50 years, 30 years. We have alumni of more than 1 million so we have a rich alumni association and they are helping our student also. Many are giving donations for establishing laboratory facilities, establishing centre of excellence and they are continuously interacting with our student also online or offline mode and that is the because of our legacy. University yes started in 2019 first batch was admitted in 2020 but we have a legacy of 1 million alumni and they are helping our student in a very great way so we are also very much thankful to the all the alumni more than one million spread across the world. As you know that the event name is New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards, what is the word new normal for you stands? So, before pandemic it was totally a brick and mortar system, New Normal is going to be blended only and that is what morning session upGrad also pitched the same idea. When you design a course you have to make it very clear if somebody has taken admission in B.E. Mechanical engineering at the time of admission we have to make it clear these are the courses which will be taught in a brick and mortar system in your offline mode and these are the courses including subject course, Course Code Credit and hours and everything will be taught in an online mode and something can be blended more. So, when student is taking admission at the time of admission is clear by how program will be transacted what is the component in online mode, what is the component in offline mode and what is component in blended mode but what will be repercussion? It would be your entire business model may change near future. Today we are admitting student per semester and student is paying fee per semester it’s just like eating a Gujarati thali, Italian thali or Rajasthani thali you are paying for enter thali. Tomorrow a student will register for the courses and fees also will be decided according to the courses that is what I am visualizing next two three years things will happen something like this. I’m glad and happy to share that we recently celebrated our one year and it has been a wonderful journey from the pre-pandemic during pandemic and post pandemic, any message would you like to give for ArdorComm Media Group? First of

“In over next five years and backed with our investors and backed with our strong team I think I’m very confident of achieving the same,” says Sushil Mundada, Co-Founder, ExtraaEdge in an interview with Chandan Anand, Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad What’s the extra and what’s the edge in this? So, thank you again for asking this question again a lot of people have been asking us, so ExtraaEdge we are an edtech startup based out of Pune working with higher education, coaching and schools for six years now. Primarily their entire admission processes we automate, we ensure that the new age marketing technologies like WhatsApp or automation can reach to them and institutes and universities can get more and better students that’s the focus area we have and we have been helping around 300 plus institutes now happy to share in around six years now we’ve been working with them and helping these institutes to grow year on year. Can you focus and highlight some of your products and services under ExtraaEdge? Yeah so primarily we have four products the first one is on the CRM and marketing automation that’s like our core product which is there institutes can manage their leads and nurture their leads via the product. The second product which we have is on WhatsApp automation so students today are much more heavily focused on WhatsApp so that’s the product which we have so ensure consent and receive WhatsApp in an automated or a direct way via the product and then we also have products like chatbot and live chat again to interact with the students. The Institute can use this and the last product which we have is an application management and a tracking system so especially in universities and higher education when institutes want the student to get attracted to them and apply to them in a seamless manner they can potentially use this product and all these four products work hand in hand with each other to increase the number of applicants and students which Institutes can acquire. So, Sushil how has been these six years journey and what’s the five years plan? Yeah so again happy to share that six years ago when we started we did not understand the market as much neither the market understood this technology. We were the first to coined this term called education marketing technology and some introduced this so we created a category around this so in six years we’ve been able to completely create a category, reach out to a lot of institutes now in India I think almost every city and town we are present, we have always also expanded our horizons outside of India now present in Middle East and some customers in UK and US as well. So, that’s going to be the plan, continue to build more products in India solve the problems on the ground like what exactly in admission what exactly problems an Institute faces so solve them and then make India proud by going outside and have more customers outside of India as well that’s plan. In over next five years and backed with our investors and backed with our strong team I think I’m very confident of achieving the same. Yours is a startup and you have been funded by many of the organizations a very nice questions I would like to ask if you want to answer it, what does an investor look for before investing in edtech? Okay so again a very tricky question in edtech so I think by default every investor looks for a returns I think that is unfed at the rule but I think investors also look at what’s an impact which is happening right when it comes to education and edtech a lot of investors potentially also looked at what’s an eventual impact which is happening on the industry as a whole and of course the country and overall economy as a whole so that’s like a very macro level view. Every investor potentially wants to ensure that technology I’m talking about technology investors right so technology comes to education and doesn’t reach only to tier one and tier two only to a metro level town but even tier two and tier three towns and cities and institutes right. So, I think a lot of investors they ask us, even happy to share that today we don’t just work with just metro cities like Pune and Mumbai right so we have got customers right from Jammu and North to around the lowest part in Tamil Nadu today and some customers in Kerala, Gujarat, smaller coaching institutes larger universities so I think that’s what investor looks at the impact on the overall ecosystem as a whole. So, the event name over here is New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards according to you how would you define on your own words New Normal? Yeah so, I think thankfully all of us have passed covid that’s what I can say personally I have been looking forward to this new normal. I can meet people like you and so many people, I can meet now but most importantly I think as far as pre-covid and post-covid is concerned everybody’s understood that we cannot do away with the technology but most importantly we cannot do away with the personal human touch as well. So, we need to kind of have a hybrid whether it’s a learning side, whether it’s on the business side, whether it is on any kind of a communication which is to be there right. So, if I have an option of meeting online I should but that cannot be replaced completely by face to face meeting so even for as far as our team is concerned we have followed hybrid model where most of the teams works out of office but then people want

“If you have to integrate all these platforms into one solution and connect all the five stakeholders that are there if you have to combine everything that is what Teachmint is basically,” says Krupal Bhansali, Zonal Sales Head, Teachmint in an interview with Chandan Anand, Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Would you like to give some light on what Teachmint is and what are the products and services which you cater to? So, Teachmint was actually evolved during the covid period when our founders were looking for a platform for teachers to communicate with students through our platform where they can interact with students and of course deliver lectures or lessons so that was the base foundation of the entire solution and from then you know it’s been about a two-year journey right now from that particular one platform it is now evolved into an end-to-end digital solution. When I say end-to-end digital solution what I mean is that typically if you see a school ecosystem there are five key stakeholders one is the student, one is the parent we have the teachers the principal and the management body. Each school is associated with at least four to five digital vendors, there is a vendor separately for an LMS solution, there is a vendor for ERP solution there is a vendor for digital classrooms because it’s an era of digital content. It was the time of covid so many had taken the paid subscription of either Zoom or MS Teams, so from a school scenario it was you know too many things to handle for the management, if you have to integrate all these platforms into one solution and connect all the five stakeholders that are there if you have to combine everything that is what Teachmint is basically. It takes care of the entire digital solution for a school. So, when it comes to a digital solution so still I think there is a gap of digital literacy amongst the stakeholders of the education Community, what are the key pointers which one should look when they hire a product or a service or when they enrol a technology partner with them? That’s a very nice question thanks for asking this there are a lot of players in the market I think the key differentiator or the key change maker in such a solution would be a couple of points. One should be ease of use. Now Teachmint you know since it’s been evolved from the ground up we understand all the pain points of a school and you know that’s how the product has actually evolved into an end-to-end solution. Number two since you know India is a very diverse country it is very important that the solution should be available in across the languages, so Teachmint is available for all languages absolutely in India. So, to Zoheb, how does such kind of forums when you get the right stakeholders like academicians, teachers and the EdTech experts the startups and the government, how does such a forum help as overall education community to grow and to learn? I think people have a very different perception about edtech companies. See we are an education infrastructure company we are not an ERP or an LMS or a Content providing company so our aim is to participate in these events and change that perception. So, we are here in this event as integrated school platform partner, technology partner so the idea of integrated school technology is to only tell them that we are going to make it easy for them. So, there is a lot of challenge among educators about how they’re going to be operating these interfaces because every app, every technology has its own interface and you know educators have many other things to do apart from learning our technology so the easiest thing what we could do is to tell them that it’s simple to use and the ease of using and bringing in all their stakeholders together. So, as simple as the parent, teachers, admin and principals all coming together for communication or fee management or content management so that’s the whole idea to tell them that they don’t have to look anywhere else it’s one platform it’s one point of contact for them to do anything whether it’s their own school management or communications or examination, assessments. So, that’s the whole idea of building this product. Krupal says: Also, I would like to add one thing which any school should look at while on boarding such a platform is the service aspect because we are dealing here with a lot of sensitive issues like you know parents, children, a school can never be in a position that they are adapting a platform and that is not being used or it is not working. So, now that is something which Teachmint is very strong at, we have each school comes with a dedicated support system so we ensure that the product is running up and running 24×7 365 days a year and we go all out to make sure that the school is happy using our product. Just to share that so that ArdorComm Media is a growing media organization we have just celebrated our one year of existence, any message would you like to give to ArdorComm Media? We look forward to being part of more such events and great work and I think excellent yeah. We look forward to participating in every part of the country with ArdorComm Media because I think ArdorComm Media is curating the conversations for the community and bringing the whole industry together and the stakeholders together, the key decision makers of schools coming here and listening to us is also providing us great platform to have these conversations, understand the problem statements of the industry and then going back and building that for them. So, that’s

“We have started a program also like related to multi-disciplinary programs for an example Sports Sciences where we involve Physiotherapy, Engineering and Allied Health Sciences,” says Prof. (Dr.) B. Sendilkumar, VinayakaMissions Research Foundation, Salem in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad Welcome Dr B. Sendilkumar in today’s event. Yeah, thank you Chandan, I’m Prof. (Dr.) B. Sendilkumar, Dean & Director, Health Sciences, VinayakaMissions Research Foundation, Salem, Tamil Nadu. We have 23 institutions across Puducherry and Tamil Nadu where we can call it as a multi-disciplinary institution starts from Engineering, Arts and Science, Architecture, Management and four Medical schools and two Dental schools and Pharmacy. We have all 23 institutions of 40 000 students studying in our campuses. As your institute is diversified into mostly the healthcare how research and skill play a role into this regular basis of education? Since we are a multi-disciplinary institution so like for an example we have health sciences stream as well as engineering stream and arts and science so we are able to collaborate among the institutions and we are able to do the lot of research related to technology as well like we have started a program also like related to multi-disciplinary programs for an example Sports Sciences where we involve Physiotherapy, Engineering and Allied Health Sciences. So, we can offer the courses also since we are NAAC accredited A+. So, as we have gathered together at New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards, what does according to you New Normal is? I think New Normal, I should say like ArdorComm Media because last year first of October New Normal started with ArdorComm so same like no this time I’m able to have a new normal here in Ahmedabad so new normal is Chandan Anand. So, we can witness in this forum where we have the edtech companies the corporates, academicians like you and the representation from government, how does this forum help in development and learning from overall education industry? Actually, I must congratulate you, conducting this kind of events in a new way back from last October so I would like to say like there’s a new education policy also started next last year so the new education policy says dual program, exit program and Industry Academia collaboration and there are so many things are coming up in new education policy where a lot of brainstorming sessions happen from throughout the morning today. So, maybe we can take it forward to the government, maybe we can ask the government to implement this kind of deliberations to the government so this is a really wonderful forum to take it forward. I’m happy to share that we have recently celebrated our first anniversary and this entire one, one and a half year since covid till now has been very exciting thrilling and learning any message would you like to give to ArdorComm Media? Sure, I’m following in all social media pages of ArdorComm Media and you. It’s a really fantastic job what you’re doing it. So, keep doing it and keep the higher education way forward. I look forward to be a part of your events always, thank you so much.

“Very recently we have decided on one student one skill kind of an initiative so which is equally important that every year they get some skill and they are more industry ready,” says Prof. Sandeep Sancheti, Provost, (Vice-Chancellor), Marwadi University, Rajkot in an interview with Chandan Anand, Founding Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAGujarat #ELSAAhmedabad As we witnessed to listen to you in the first panels which talked about the National Education Policy, any initiatives which under your leadership the university has already taken or in plans to take to actually Implement that? Yeah, so NEP is a very important direction for all of us, very open also so I’m sure most of the institutions have done something or else in this direction. So, is the case with the Marwadi University that we have done many of them for example we are now offering programs under ABC Academic Bank of Credit and to offer that we have created committees which will be doing the credit equivalences, credit transfers and other things which will take care of all related activities. We also made sure that we offer three year and four-year programs which are again the order of the NEP in the sense that it should be flexible. So, recently coined programs on BSc have been done three and four years particularly we have converted some of the honours program into four years our student can make an exit after three years and will get non-honours program. We have also rephrased the programs in such a manner that after first year one can make an exit and, in that case, they will have to do a small module which will be of skilling so with that skilling they can also get certification or maybe diploma and things like that so these are all in line. With that very recently we have decided on one student one skill kind of an initiative so which is equally important that every year they get some skill and they are more industry ready and there’s a whole lot of things which we are trying to do when we talk of multi-disciplinary. When we talk of research, when we talk of internationalization Marwadi University anyway is ahead though it’s very young but it’s doing very very well. So, the buzzword of now a times in many of the forums is about the newest technologies so if I ask about the ICT or the edtech implementation in your university? Edtech implementation is most essential for everyone including my university, fortunately we are young so more adoptable more dynamic and we also owe our origin to a finance company called Marwadi shares and finance limited which was purely electronic since inception so we know that in our roots all these things are there. So, as an example we have a system called URP, University Resource Planning which is end to end from admission to alumni everything is taken care nothing is done on paper including every examination result or maybe copy showing or any approval any, event anything is done online only so we have made many IT based or IT support systems to make sure that students in our activities are supported. As an example, if I have to issue a book I have to carry the book go in front of the system it will recognize me with face recognition I have to put the book which I want to get issued, book will be issued to me there is no human interaction or intervention in the process so that much of automation we have done when it comes to teaching learning. Obviously, we are doing things from MOOC so we are partners of Coursera we are doing everything possibly online through a lot of blended mode teaching learning. So, we have trained hundred percent of teachers for that and we also made compulsory in certain cases in engineering and other disciplines that some of the labs and courses will be virtual mode done virtually and some of the courses will be delivered in an online mode so that the students become familiar with that. So, all that whatever can be done to make them more IT savvy and more IT ready in terms of use as well as delivery has been done. So, one very typical and a very old question I will ask is alumni meet important and why? Alumni meet would always be important for the simple reason that alumni are always a growing base every year in that base number of alumni will get added it may be thousands or two thousand or whatever it may be whereas rest of the numbers will grow slowly. So, in a given institution if the strength is five thousand, ten thousand the alumnus may be twenty thousand, thirty thousand and if you are not able to connect with your own people in a right manner then obviously you are not going to grow you are not taking care of them. Alumni is important also because they also give a lot of feedback they also give lot of inputs, they also give you a lot of teaching learning support they also give you a lot of connect with the industry and so on so forth so that you get the projects and all that so that’s the second reason alumni are important. The third thing I would say is alumni themselves continue to remain a student for future today’s education goes for matured students also so every alumni who has graduated from Marwadi will have to learn something new and why shouldn’t we help our own alumni. So, our alumni connect is important we do it in a very formal way in a certain way we award them, reward them we call them and so on so forth but there is no limit what more can be done. Fortunately for us in all formal