-By Chandan Anand, Group Editor, ArdorComm Media
February 9, 2023
“We are working in video engineering and there are a lot of concepts related to videos that we are coming up with,” says Deepak Joshi, CEO, Phando in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan
Would like to understand more about Phando, your mission, vision and what you are doing at Phando?
We started Phando in 2013 as a video streaming technology platform and with a vision that we wanted to provide a cost optimized video solution for all the EdTech, OTT and media industry. We started with a lot of media houses, we’re working with hundred plus media houses and cable TV operators, ISPs, broadcasters. So, I think it’s been a great journey in the past 10 years especially after pandemic there was a surge in OTT and IPTVs so we are tapping that industry as well. I think it’s going well and the future is good for video. We saw some good initiatives here related to videos and EdTech industries is also going towards video-led learnings now. I mean earlier it was more of texts-based learning, quiz assessments but now we see that Coursera, Udemy, UpGrad a lot of EdTech platforms are coming with the vision of video-led learnings, so video is definitely the future and that’s why we are working in video engineering and there are a lot of concepts related to videos that we are coming up with.
Do you also provide training to the people who will be buying this or implementing this in the curriculum?
No, we are not an EdTech platform we are a back-end technology partner of any EdTech. So, we help universities, schools to set up their own EdTech.
As we have all gathered at New Normal Education Leadership Summit, according to you what is the word New Normal stands for?
We are hearing this word a lot after pandemic when kids started coming to school in April 2022 we had fear with our kids also that whether this is going to work what will happen uh in a post-pandemic the covid situation and all but I think we are picking up fast and it’s been a great transformation after pandemic they are a blend of offline and online learning now and earlier they were just on physical education and all this but now they are very well comfortable with laptops and online learnings as well. So, I think the new normal is going to be a hybrid model of offline and online learning and that’s what it is. I think for me New Normal is the hybrid model.
During pandemic definitely the hybrid or the blended learning was much adopted, are you seeing the same growth post pandemic?
Yes, definitely we see a surge, the number says itself there are a lot of surge in the user consumption. We saw a lot of EdTech, Byjus and other they’re growing rapidly and that’s because of this online learning space and also the penetration of Internet is booming, 5G is coming, there are AR, VR possibilities. There are new things coming up with metaverse also things will move faster because it will feel the students that they are there itself. So, of course I see a lot of potential there and it’s growing.
How does certain kind of forum help when we see the technology partners, start-ups, EdTech, academia and even the government at the common platform, so how do you experience this event as?
This is always helpful, whatever we are doing we are doing that but we also learn a lot with other start-ups, other people from the same fraternity and when we hear principles and educators and EdTech owners so we come to know what’s going on actually in the grassroot. We’re from Delhi and generally we hear a lot from Delhi people but then when we are talking about so for example Jaipur or any regional places it’s very helpful because we probably do not know what’s going on there in tier three, tier four cities so that it’s very important and of course the other companies also, so we learn a lot and I’ve seen multiple solutions here also.
I’m glad to share that recently ArdorComm Media celebrated it’s one and a half years and we celebrated our anniversary doing multiple forums, webinars, events, any message or any advice for ArdorComm Media Group?
Congratulations, I’ve been following you for the past one year, Ashish was in touch also so we saw you did some fantastic events and Ashish was chasing us and because Jaipur was nearby so we thought that let’s participate this time, but amazing coordination and everything was superb. So, congratulations for all this and I wish you all the best for your future.