Its time to have game changers in education

Last few days, I spent my time in interviewing fresh graduates from colleges (non IITs / Premium Colleges) for security internship in my company. I was both happy and disappointed. I was happy because I was meeting some smart youngsters and I was disappointed because I felt that, probably, they have wasted their four years of their life in colleges. I felt this simply because their basics were not correct in what ever they studied.

Is it because they are not smart enough or because we do not have good educational system / smart teachers in our non premium colleges?

With India's ever increasing population of youngsters, will we ever be able to keep up with the requirement of quality education?

In my opinion some of the main root causes of the problem are following:

1. Every one is running behind IT and wasting their actual talent.
2. Late Wake up Call. When the time for job searching comes, everyone starts studying.
3. Lack of Conceptual, at the same time Creative, teaching in Colleges. Students do not get their basics correct.

The problem is mammoth with millions of students graduating each year. In my opinion, one of the creative solution to solve this problem is to have early wake up call (a whack on the side of their head), probably a mid assessment where students are, in terms profession, industry requirement and research.

Probably one of the best way to learn is by examples and industrial projects that they can engage with, early in their curriculum. Some of the new startups, like Internfever or Stalk Ninja have already started creating a channel between students and companies in IT field. They provide a platform where companies their expose small projects and students can apply for the projects. It will provide some of the wonderful opportunities to students to refine their skill set at an early stage.

Let us hope they and similar startups can be game changers in Education!!!

Just a FALTU blog

Recent movie "FALTU" got a good success, unexpected from a movie with no super stars. I saw the movie during its third week after getting some good reviews from my friends. At the end of the movie, I was stunned. The movie has good storyline and concept. No wonder, movie got connected with the people.

The movie revolves around word called "Faltu". "Faltu" means useless. It is a movie about people who are backbenchers and are considered as Faltu by parents and teachers. In the movie, few (founder) Faltu students, opened a fake college, named as Faltu, just to make their parents happy and convince them that their children also got admission into a good college of India. They published about Faltu in the paper, put up one website and invited their parents to the college.

To their surprise, they got accompany from 500 other Faltu students who registered online, thinking that the college is legitimate. In the middle of this caos, founder faltu students decided to continue the college, where everyone is free to study and do any thing that they like.

Faltu students studied what they like most, some studied acting, some cooking, some fitness and lot of other unorthodox subjects. I, personally, love this concept. I have seen a lot of people who are brilliant in their own ways, however, we do not have right examination for them. It is like you are judging a soccer player by how many runs he scores in a cricket game.

In the next few decades, India is going to have a lot of students, holding engineering degrees, however will be referred as Faltus by the society. Probably this movie is an answer to the future and it won't be a surprise that some entrepreneur take this idea to next level.

Inspiration from Tees Mar Khan

Last two weekends, I watched two of the latest Bollywood movies, as expected from a movie freak that I am. One movie is "Tees Mar Khan" (TMK), a fantastic promotion but not so good show in the theatre. Second is "No One killed Jessica", expected to do decent show in the theatres.

TMK is almost a flop, but do not worry, I am not going to write about whys and what-if's. However, I want to highlight in TMK is the role of "thief", named Tees Mar Khan, as a brilliant concept in field of creativity. Tees Mar Khan, played by Akshay Kumar, is a world renowned thief and fraudster, a half Robin Hood who thieves money from rich but does not return back to poor. He can open any lock in the world.

Two of the inspiring lessons from the movie are:

1. Open the mental lock. TMK can open any lock.

2. Lead by Inspiration. TMK inspired Akshay Kanna at every moment.

3. Get ready to change your plan, depending upon situations

Roger Von Oech, a creativity guru, suggests the concept of a 'stupid/fool' in creativity. A fool reverse all the assumptions and suggest foolish suggestions/ideas to give totally different alternative to the main thinker. No wonder, this idea is not new and you might have seen that in movies and serials, a detective hero is always accompanied by a foolish character.

I believe that TMK can be used as another creative character who can inspire and open your mental locks. If you ever feel, you are arrested by police of same mundane routine, you should act like TMK.