The way of openness in education has widely detonated ever since the pandemic hit the world and the education sector hit the ground. It indicated it was time for the addition of technological advancements into the education industry.
As the famous saying goes, “You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach the student to learn by creating curiosity, he/she will continue the learning process as long as he/she lives.” The above saying stands very true!
When a traditional educational curriculum is carefully curated with modern changes, learning becomes an enjoyable process altogether for the educator as well as for the learners. It resulted in a huge revelation with the new strategies and activities that led to its newer version of education.
With the mindset of service and advocacy to implement strategies and activities, Raghavendra Manbol, Executive Director of Panworld Education, entered the arena focusing on education with student and user satisfaction.
Raghavendra brings his more than 2 decades of Business experience from the Information/Publishing Industry, accompanied by the associated technologies across the Middle East and South-East Asian Countries.
Let’s peek in and learn more about this edupreneur journey!
The Saga of Raghavendra’s Edupreneur Journey
Sharing valuable insights into his edupreneur journey, Raghavendra shares about the start of his career in the Education sector, with experience spanning multiple continents (several countries) for about 2 decades. His educational journey brought him a rich experience, provided tremendous exposure in the sector, and allowed him to meet many professionals in the field.
Fast forwarding to 2012, when he had an opportunity to get into discussions with like minded people in a hangout from varied backgrounds. During the course of the discussions, although they came from varied backgrounds, the things that were common among them was passion and progressive mindset to work towards innovative educational technologies and its possibilities in benefits of learners and organizations.
During that hangout, they discovered, with common passion, interest in the Education sector challenges and the zeal to contribute to the long term vision. The drive to do something good in the education sector sparked the creation of the idea and the company, Panworld Education, thereby leading him to become an Edupreneur.
About Panworld Education
Offering a technology-based learning platform with resources & advanced infrastructure solutions and consultancy to the Educational Institutions from K-12 to Higher Education, Corporates, and several others in the educational sector, is the affiliated company of Panworld Group, which goes by the name Panworld Education.
As the name goes, so does its vision, “Inspired Learning and Improved Outcomes.” To effectively empower educational institutions/organizations/ministries imparting education and enable learning with the best of the content & technologies.
Panworld’s Mission is to continue being the leading “Content & Technology Integrators for Education” that builds & integrates the best solutions by imparting high-quality education with quality delivery, services, and customer satisfaction.
The Core values dwell around the theme of “Inspire Better Learning” and “Foster a culture of Lifelong Learning.”
Raghavendra’s Steps for Upliftment of Education Arena
In the year 2015, the United Nations General Assembly (UN-GA) set up the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are intended to be achieved by the year 2030. The SDGs is a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “Shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” Among those 17 SDGs, the SDG4 is to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
Raghavendra shareing his views as an Edupreneur; highlights that he has adopted this SDG4 as the motto of the organization and drives all the activities in support of this goal. With his organization, he offers Ministries, Educational groups & institutions the much needed solutions for the 2030 vision. For educators, it is a much-needed ‘Content & Technology’ solution to drive the goal in their area of work.”
Raghavendra shares about his contribution to National levels, as they have contributed to the National level digital reformations across many countries and educational institutions.
Challenges of Being an Edupreneur
To pace up with the ever-changing landscape of education, standing out among the competition while adjusting to different cultural sensitivities and offering the appropriate solutions to customers has been quite challenging. The last decade has been witnessing changes at a much faster rate than the previous decades.
Being an edupreneur on top of all these things has been the greatest challenge. Raghavendra overcame many of these aspects, being a voracious reader and a learner, and donning various hats of many stakeholders in the ecosystem.
Also, being a learner has helped him comprehend future requirements faster and to scope solutions that meet the demands of the education sector.
Pacing with the Technology
Predominantly focusing on the perspective of an edupreneur, Raghavendra majorly focuses on what is required to cope with technology as it is required to keep ahead of the curve always! That is not a simple feat. He states, “Keeping track of the changes and learning ahead of the rest of the sector is a monumental endeavor given how quickly things are changing in the education sector (and all other sectors).”
One has to adapt to the growing needs of the sector in the areas of imparting education and ensuring lifelong learning. Sharing his experiences while being an active member of education conferences, he has been trying to cope with these changes by being part of the thought-leaders forums, educational conferences, and incubators, evaluating various start-ups which spring up solutions at a faster pace and being able to add to the portfolio of the solutions that they offer to their customers, thereby ensuring their goals & objectives are met in the journey of imparting education.
Roadblocks On the Way
As in any sector, there are many roadblocks in the Education sector too, some driven by the evolution of the time and some being forced by unforeseen natural calamities (like COVID). Some of them had been quite a major roadblocks on the way. However these have been overcome by attaching to the cause of SDG4. This has been a great incentive for moving toward success. As the famous saying goes, “Success is an ongoing journey; there is no end to success.” This particular saying has also been a great motivator to keep taking meaningful strides all the time.
Whilst talking about the students of today and their future, Raghavendra mentions, “Students have more options to choose from than those of a few decades back, and the opportunities that bring in itself could be the greatest inspiration for their promising future.”
Embracing Modern Education in Schools and Colleges
The world is advancing at a much faster pace than ever in terms of technological evolution in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Many new streams are becoming more prominent, like Coding, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Drones, 3D Printing, IoT, Cloud computing, VR/AR/MR, Metaverse, Quantum Computing, Gene Editing, and many more.
It became imperative with the additions in mainstream education, several advanced skill sets, that would be required for the future workforce. With the additional job openings based on the technological advances that the world is currently witnessing.
Thus, to prepare the future generation for these new streams (be it a job or research, or exploration), schools and universities must incorporate educating the future generation of youth with these concepts.
On the primary level, schools should introduce these basic concepts as early as possible to the future generation of youth (which is being witnessed in many areas already). And on the secondary level, universities need to build additional courses/workshops/training for the youth to be future-ready as soon as possible.
Meeting the Needs of the Youth
The emerging needs of the youth of all generations are a huge challenge, with things and life evolving around it. In the ongoing decade, they have witnessed the evolution of technology at a much faster pace than the previous decades.
While they may not be able to completely address the needs of the youth today, Raghavendra mentions, “They can continue to do what has been started to address the future requirements by educating them on the latest ongoing trends.”
Wise Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Edupreneurs
With the significant growth observed in the past few years, edupreneurs still have difficulty keeping up with it. It is a challenge to rise to the occasion by being more innovative and more adaptive than being reactive and pre-empting in creating solutions. Raghavendra shares it will not only help the future of students but also make their learning journey an interesting one.
Given all the efforts taken to make digital education inclusive before the pandemic, with its advent, digital education can no more be neglected. However, digital education comes with its shortfalls due to various factors. He advises the future edupreneurs –“To be more agile, more proactive and be more adaptive to the market conditions.”
Envisioning the Future of Education
Sharing thoughts on the future, with the changing scenario of education, Raghavendra states his excitement towards the new wave, as it would be interesting to see how the education sector develops in the near future.
Further elaborating, it gives a deeper insight into the two drivers, i.e., the technological advances of 4IR (fourth industrial revolution) and the advent of the pandemic have made the future of education even more intriguing.
With the world trying to come to terms with the technological advances of 4IR, the pandemic brought a different perspective to the education sector also. These drivers force educators and policymakers to rethink Education. These forces have brought more flavor to the mix. Whereas a few years ago, the entire world was moving toward learning-based education rather than memorization-based education.
The disadvantages of the Pandemic, to name as loss of reading skills and others. The journey of making students future-ready and trying to inculcate learning-based education is making this space more interesting going forward.
To top all of that, the 2030 SDG4 goals are also receiving a lot of attention. Mr. Manbol states, “This generation is going through a lot of challenges in the education sector too (apart from other sectors) and needs to come up with appropriate solutions for a better future.”
Prestigious Awards
Award of Excellence in E-Learning – Issued by World Education Congress 2018/ Sustainable Development Goals (Quality Education for All) · Jul 2018
ICONIC Education Leader Award – Issued by FAMA for Excellence in Leadership in Education, December 2021.
Innovative SME of the Year Award – Nov 2022, issued by Gulf Business Awards in collaboration with Century Financial.
First Round Judge – Reimagine Education Awards 2022: By QS Quacquarelli Symonds, November 2022.
Judge at the International Business Excellence Awards 2021 organized by Awards International.
Judge at the UK Business & Innovation Awards – Feb 2022, organized by Awards International.
