Ronnie Screwvala
2+ of articles published
Creative Mind / Wise Guide / Artistic Soul
Domain:
upGrad
Current role in the industry:
Chairperson & Co-Founder at upGrad.com
Educational Qualification:
Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics.
Expertise:
Entrepreneurship
Rural Development
Media
Broadcast
Mobile Marketing
Business
Film
Published
Most Popular
6995
Entrepreneurship Can Be Learnt And Should Be Taught
I often need to explain myself when I say that in order to exploit the talent in the country, which is witnessing an unprecedented wave of entrepreneurship, lessons on starting up need to be imparted. I do not subscribe to the notion that one is either born with an ‘entrepreneur gene’ or not. I will tell you why. Yes, you can’t teach someone to leave the comfort of his or her secure job and dive head first into the challenging world of entrepreneurship, but you can teach them how to survive, scale, stay the course, pre-empt obstacles and think beyond them, and, most importantly, how to take risks. And let me highlight the fact that taking a risk in your entrepreneurial journey without knowing the pitfalls is just foolish behaviour, while taking a risk after deep analysis of the situation is essential and can be definitely taught. An opportunity of an Idea Without clarity of vision, it will remain just that: a great idea There are a couple of basic things one needs to keep in mind before going all out with a startup. A great idea is a wonderful thing, but without clarity of vision, it will remain just that: a great idea. A structured learning on entrepreneurship can help gain the ability to recognise an opportunity, understand and foresee potential problems and prepare for solutions, while continuing to create value all along the way. When I look around at the current crop of startups, I see them missing out on key elements like product development, team building, financial and legal basics before going to town on their product or service. They fail to understand that when they miss out on these crucial first steps, they are indirectly affecting their long-term prospects. Also Read: Is MBA Required for Career’s Growth? Learn Online MBA Courses from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. The present picture It is imperative to showcase the innumerable failures and non-successful areas of a startup. The media nowadays only focusses on successful founders and their stories, portraying a rosy scene of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This, in turn, makes for confusion, as everyone assumes that these triumphant stories had a very easy road to success, which in reality is far from the truth. If we want to create a habitat for sustained entrepreneurship in the country, it is imperative to showcase the innumerable failures and non-successful areas of a startup. It is important to come up with platforms wherein budding and aspiring entrepreneurs get clarity of thought and orient their mind to solve problems, because they will face many. They require a network to learn and grow, study to understand how people failed and how they made sure that their failure didn’t mean the end of the road. The Need of the hour They need a place that allows them to work out their ideas The right guidance is what the entrepreneurs of today need. They need a place that allows them to work out their ideas, without actually having it structured out for them. They need a mentor who leaves them with a lot of questions, rather than full stops. They need a guide who will get them to think, and ask themselves questions they did not dare ask so far. And with a training that provides them all this, Indian entrepreneurs will be unstoppable. This is being facilitated by the 15-week Entrepreneurship program, designed considering the time constraints of a working professional but at the same time providing quality content and mentoring facilities to give aspiring entrepreneurs clarity to take the plunge into starting up and also give guidance to existing entrepreneurs to upscale their businesses. Planning to startup? Explore real life case studies, group assignments and opportunities for networking and collaboration with UpGrad’s 3-month online entrepreneurship program — Leadership & Management program If you want to learn more about marketing and entrepreneurship, Liverpool Business School & upGrad offers Master of Business Administration (MBA) Liverpool Business School which helps you to transform your career. The program provides 1-on-1 mentorship from industry leaders, 1-week immersion program at University campus, dual credentials (MBA from LBS & PGPM from IMT), network with peers at offline basecamps and more.
20 Apr 2016
5182
India’s Education Sector needs a new Avatar, a Contemporary Approach
This article was originally published in Economic Times. Everyone seems to be talking about disruption. Like “startup” and “funding”, “disruption” has become a part of our daily parlance and evinces a strong sentiment among entrepreneurial enthusiasts. We are seeing disruption across sectors and levels, all of which is helping us in reimagining the world around us. Education, meanwhile, is crying out for disruption but is going unheard. It is a sector that is brimming with opportunities and waiting to be tapped with an innovative approach. The Need of the Hour The question is, are our institutions and universities imparting knowledge for a world that does not exist anymore in its old avatar? And are all of us, especially our youth, becoming smarter learners? The answer for both these questions is a resounding “yes”. The Idea Called UpGrad: Why Education is Serious Business India has the largest college-age population in the world — close to a staggering 125 million — but it is startling to know that less than one in five of them is doing their post-secondary education. This means only 20% of college-age youngsters are doing their higher education as opposed to 90% in the US. Will India be able to achieve its gross domestic product (GDP) growth targets at this rate? No. Will we need to double our participation rates in higher education in the next five-ten years? Yes Can pure offline, brick-and-mortar college and university models fill this massive gap? Again, the answer is obvious. Look at the challenges. One, it takes four-eight years to set up one campus/university and at its peak it could cater to 5,000-10,000 students. Two, we need to have enough trainers and teachers to feed into these facilities, many of them in remote areas or away from cities. Three, the cumulative outlay at scale for private or public-private partnership (PPP) models to cater to the entire college-going population will be nothing short of $100 billion. Four, over half of this 125 million youngsters, I believe, will have compulsions to take up a job very early in life for socio-economic reasons and may not have the flexibility to go back to college after that. In this scenario, online education can be the big disruptor for India. Of course, there will be myriad challenges, but it offers exponential solutions: it can reach the remotest parts of India, aggregate the best faculty as everyone from the offline world can participate with much less demand on their time and lastly our youth can stay in their jobs while continuing to learn. Kushagra Saran’s Journey while Impacting Education Disruption in online education can be the answer to the gigantic challenge that India, called the youngest nation in the world, is facing. If we do not create equal opportunities and access to the best learning/upskilling/upgrading centres for our ambitious and aspiring youth, our demographic dividend can turn into a demographic debt. Skill India too has a goal to train over 400 million people by 2022 and this audacious outreach can be achieved only by radical disruptive thinking and bold execution. However, online will not succeed if it simply copies traditional teaching methodology. Online education should be more focused on professional education and post-graduation as those demographics look for flexibility and augmentation. For early years and K-12, brick-and-mortar schools will continue to play a big role in the holistic development of the child and online education will only be a supplement. Five-Year Plans For online education to be disruptive and for it to succeed, education will have to be thought through as a digitalfirst medium. Technology will have to be integrated to create a superior learning experience on the online platform. Online education has to move away from being a glorified content library; it has to involve peer-to-peer discussions, alumni chats, group studies and more. It has to shed its reputation of providing isolated, individual learning platforms and evolve into a social platform where you are not learning alone but studying together with a lot of individuals. Let’s come to terms with a few things. In the 21st century, what we learn will have less and less relevance after five years and hence there is a need for constant upgrade. Convergence of new forms of learning will be the fuel for and engine of economic growth. Universities need to develop programmes that are linked closely with employer demands. Otherwise, the results will be disastrous: while job seekers overspend on education programmes that are less likely to result in ideal employment opportunities, employers will be hiring poor fits. We need to change the mindsets of multiple stakeholders — academia, companies, students, young professionals and, most important, families — because how we learn and who we learn from have transformed. Our dependence on experts and figures of authority has diminished while our ability to learn from each other has spiralled dramatically. All I can say is, I wish I was back in college today. If you like to have one-to-one with industry experts, networking with hundreds of entrepreneurs, and bag a seed funding to start your idea, check Leadership & Management program
11 Mar 2016