Dalham Learning, a new-age holistic EdTech organization, has introduced uniquely designed range of modules focusing on 21 st -century skills for educators to upskill them and enhance their teaching skills. An in-depth understanding of 21 st Century Skills will allow educators to promote skill development in the classroom, thereby transitioning to competency-based teaching, learning, and evaluation.
What was your journey as a futurist and social entrepreneur in EdTech?
I have been an entrepreneur for almost a decade now. Have built Great Place To Study, which I drove for 10 years till it was acquired in 2020. I moved out full-time to build Dalham Learning. My journey has been quite interesting and enterprise-like. I was able to see through many things which were “yet to take shape” in India. For example, in Great Place To Study, we pioneered education branded content back in 2012 with the first education-related television series.
We have also built the first student satisfaction survey based on school ratings. In Dalham Learning, we have designed the first integrated liberal education curriculum for engineering & management students.
All of these later came out as mainstream agendas both in the public and private sectors. Staying ahead of time gave my enterprises and me due respect from the community that we work with, and we were able to build our own niche.
When did Dalham’s learning start, and what was the story behind it?
Dalham Learning officially started in 2020 but was ideated in 2018. The whole context for us to look at holistic education in mainstream professional courses in engineering and management.
90% of engineers are completely disconnected from social sciences disciplines. Be it effective communication, writing, critical thinking, or overall understanding role of philosophy in AI, anthropology in the digital world, etc.
Universities in developed economies have had these subjects for years, but in India, we have just focused on skilling human brains. Given the fact that we have entered a human-machine environment workplace or the 4th industrial revolution, it is important that our graduating students have a holistic understanding and better perspective. Our story was simple, and we wanted to democratize social science education and highlight the importance of the intersection of science and humanities through our micro-learning courses.
Can you tell us what this platform aims for and what courses are offered?
The platform aims at helping students become holistically educated while they pursue their under-graduation and post-graduation programs by integrating our courses into their curriculum. We currently offer two verities of a bundle of courses (i) 21st Century Skills Micro-Learning Programs, in which we offer 12 subjects with 70+ learning hours like Design Thinking, Creativity and Problem Solving, Cross-cultural Skills, etc., and (ii) Applied Humanities in which offer subjects like Philosophy & AI, Public Policy & Governance, Sociology for Modern World, Discover India – Ancient History, Culture & Art, etc. with 10 subjects, 140+ hours of learning, etc.
What all challenges did you face in the beginning as an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurs and problem-solving go hand in hand. The level of the problem changes as you progress and grow. If I refer to my early stage of entrepreneurship, which was in 2011, I had no idea about anything, so everything was challenging. Fast forwarding it to my second innings, I think the bigger challenge is to educate society on the importance of such a program. While NEP is at the forefront of pushing for social sciences.
What other sectors have you worked in, and what was your recent achievement?
After dropping college, I spent some time as an intern in media and technology. That gave me the opportunity to discover my interest and passion. Storytelling fascinated me and I wanted to use it as my tool to change a few things in education. I didn’t work in any other sector besides education.
Everyone has some other hobby, what are yours and when do you spend time doing them?
My hobbies are reading and collecting history books from all eras, I play around 5 different percussion instruments and recently started liking mixing them. I take out time after work or on weekends to give some time to my drums and books.
This article is drafted by Prittle Prattle News in the form of an Interview.
