-By ArdorComm Media Bureau
December 26, 2023
“My AI version or Avatar is called Maya. Maya itself means illusion. The world is an illusion the sooner we get it-the better we are” said Dr. Manjula Pooja Shroff, MD & CEO, Kalorex Group at ArdorComm New Normal- Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2023” held in Pune, Maharashtra on 24th November 2023.
In such busy schedule of yours, How do you take care of your mental and physical will-being?
The coach has to clean himself-herself first! The only way you can maintain your own integrity in what you are doing is by following that. So, there is a distinct process of cleaning that I do to myself to maintain that there is no dust in the way. I think, like you clean your teeth I clean my mind everyday.
You related the cricket world-cup in the education in today’s event. How do you collect the real-life incidents to motivate the audience at a large scale?
I’m an educationist, I think like an educationist. So, I’m always looking for live lesson. What happened in Ahmedabad on that faithful day of the International Cricket World-cup. It showed me a new picture of India, a picture that is more sensible, a picture that is more sensitive. 10 year ago if this had happened our cricket team would have been bashed left right and centre. Would have only criticized, finding fault would have happened and every individual cricketer would have found it very difficult to show the face. The pride that I saw in that state that day is that standing together for team India. We were there in their victory and we were more than present for their loss and I think that is the real growth of humanity. There is a sea change in what we see this time we stood with them emotionally and that’s beautiful.
What is this version of Dr. Manjula Pooja Shroff as an AI speaker? How did it came into your mind?
My AI version or Avatar is called Maya. Maya itself means illusion. The world is an illusion the sooner we get it-the better we are. So, AI is an illusion in the world and the nomenclature Maya is so beautiful. The reason we did AI was not was not easy. I mean we are into education, not industry. We neither have research ability not the money to do this kind of stuff but it was important that an educational group breaks the barrier to say that research is not only done by industry. So, we started this whole effort to say that we can demonstrate AI and not just talk about it. It started with the initial thought and in 60 days we were able to do it with some internal support and some intern from Gandhinagar that’s it.
With this Avatar of Maya, how are you going to take it to the education in order to your pedagogy and curriculum?
As part of Kalorex culture one of the very important areas is teacher training or teacher human development my lot of time was personally involved in it. I used to create the course, Go through the scripting, curate it then implementing it. Now, Maya is doing it. My voice is cloned, my face is cloned, I only approve the script and my does all the production. So, my work is reduced to 25% only, that is the power of an AI, which thankfully we have understood.
How certain forum helps overall industry to interact and learn from each other?
I always maintain that forums like this create collaboration and collaboration is the only way forward. I like your approach to create a unique space, I like your approach for learning the incremental things, I like your approach for making small changes that are impactful and that shows your attention to detail. And when you have attention to detail excellence is a by-product. Personally I like your space because of your attention to the details and your need and ability and understanding to bring about incremental changes. But on overall platform these platforms are very good.