very good afternoon to all of you I am a
scientist by profession and a social
take entrepreneur by passion but people
like me who are pursuing a PhD in my
case in electrical engineering from the
University of Cambridge are frowned upon
by those in academia this is mainly
because the PhD culture in stem is stuck
in a bubble of age-old stereotypes and
conventions that researchers should only
work in the narrow field of expertise
and that their life should begin and end
in a mechanical mission eyes structure
devoid of emotions it is a tragedy that
the philosophy from PhD is being routed
away completely I hope you can all agree
when I say that for people to be
productive and to do worthwhile work we
need to be surrounded by passion
creativity collaboration sympathy
co-creation and empathy driving our
energies to design a better world now
let me ask you all a question how many
of you think that a pure mechanical work
see so why why is it that intellectual
powerhouses of knowledge remain obvious
to these frightening fact of tomorrow
the fact that technology is dramatically
changing
the future of work by turning a blind
eye we are allowing technology to break
our educational systems and it is
happening around us now you might argue
this to be far more of a futuristic
scenario and just a matter of hot debate
so let’s just refocus and look at the
things happening right now and you will
see that this is not the case we are in
a dynamic uncertain world powered by a
series of technological innovations
powered by digital revolution we are
becoming increasingly reliant on
interactive technologies for personal
use from social media and entertainment
to everyday activities such as shopping
banking to even using a telephone this
is the age of self-driving cars drone
deliveries robotic citizens and even
space holiday digital revolution has
brought with it unimaginable
opportunities for humanity but also
poses significant challenges that could
lead to an existential crisis if not
addressed properly we can talk about
this great power of digital connectivity
but according to UNESCO more than 750
million people across the globe are
digitally illiterate so as digital
skills becomes necessary life skills how
do we connect this vast majority
of socially marginalized sections of
society to this digital world it is this
question that led four of us Cambridge
students to come up with his idea of
turning slums into silicon valley’s by
engaging training and matching
marginalized youth in slums to coding
jobs now countries like India going
digital and cashless when over 70% of
its population have no proper access to
Internet is an astronomical problem to
deal with this is an onion she is one
among the 400 million youth trapped in a
vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation
at the bottom of the pyramid
completely disconnected from the so
called digital revolution of our times
we wanted to help youth like anemia by
using the power of Technology through a
massive open online platform which
teaches these people digital and coding
skills and it is based on a one-to-one
tutoring program of the Oxbridge model
we also get them placed with matching
jobs now while we were doing this we
noticed that suddenly the low-level
coding jobs have started disappearing
from the face of what it strucker’s that
automation apocalypse is taking shape
posing serious social economic political
cultural and identity crisis digital
revolution
opens doors to immense possibilities for
improving education through virtual
learning online tutoring apps and other
social startups that aid this movement
but on the other hand it is breaking our
education as we have seen in the example
of PhDs
we are clearly failing the race to train
our next generation to rise up to an
unknown uncertain and challenging future
that awaits all of us it is this
observation that motivated me and my
brother to take a deeper and closer look
at educational systems across the globe
what we noticed with startling numbers
of unskilled graduates rising suicide
and depression rates we knew it is high
time to restructure education we
identify that the root cause of all
these issues boil down to the fact that
no focus is given to an individual’s
interest rather a focus is imposed on an
individual eventually leading to
mounting pressure discontent and an
unending struggle to fit into a
professional career unsuited for this
particular individual now
having discovered why this was happening
we asked ourselves how do we solve this
we looked at our country India with over
1.5 million schools with 300 million
students now that is 10 times the
population of all Scandinavian countries
put together India is also the youngest
country in the world with 50% of its
population below 25 and 65 percent of
its population below 35 that is roughly
800 million people we are talking about
to put that into a better perspective it
is an entire population of Europe put
together now considering this gigantic
numbers along with the rising
unemployment rates and job losses due to
automation India has a monster to deal
with also unlike most countries when it
comes to education boats curriculum and
institution types in the other rich
diversity which further complicates the
problem the worsening part is that we do
not have a centralized normalization
procedure meaning to different
individuals completing the same course
from two different institutions do not
have a common baseline or guideline to
be compared with we understood that if
we could solve this in the Indian
context this can be replicated anywhere
else across the globe and thus our
social adieu tech startup was born there
are a number of companies across the
globe producing content for helping
innovating education but traditional
classrooms with absolutely no access to
high-tech facilities are at a
disadvantage here is these neglected
classrooms
are used purely from a data perspective
we can change the life and career of
every student now
with this idea we started a platform
which can capture data from an existing
school environment using our artificial
intelligence modules we then derive
meaningful connections and correlation
to spot skills and behavioral aspects of
each individual so that precise focus is
given to the right skill development we
also ensure that all the stakeholders in
the system that is teachers parents and
students are very well aware of each
student’s capability so that they are
always measured with the right scale now
imagine imagine this world where a
student who aspires to be a poet is
judged for their literary skills rather
than their poor skills in geometry this
is our vision our vision is to empower
every student to prepare them for an
uncertain future by helping them do what
they are good at today we have explored
how to social tech startups are using
technology as a disruptive tool for
restructuring educational systems to
adapt to the new world order this is why
I believe that social educational tech
initiatives are crucial to the 21st
century as they have this incredible
potential to innovate education
as well as connect the bottom of the
pyramid to the ongoing digital
revolution of our times let us not allow
technology to break our education join
us and the likes of us in reinventing
educational systems and molding human
beings who are more human than ever
thank you all thank you very much [Applause]
scientist by profession and a social
take entrepreneur by passion but people
like me who are pursuing a PhD in my
case in electrical engineering from the
University of Cambridge are frowned upon
by those in academia this is mainly
because the PhD culture in stem is stuck
in a bubble of age-old stereotypes and
conventions that researchers should only
work in the narrow field of expertise
and that their life should begin and end
in a mechanical mission eyes structure
devoid of emotions it is a tragedy that
the philosophy from PhD is being routed
away completely I hope you can all agree
when I say that for people to be
productive and to do worthwhile work we
need to be surrounded by passion
creativity collaboration sympathy
co-creation and empathy driving our
energies to design a better world now
let me ask you all a question how many
of you think that a pure mechanical work
see so why why is it that intellectual
powerhouses of knowledge remain obvious
to these frightening fact of tomorrow
the fact that technology is dramatically
changing
the future of work by turning a blind
eye we are allowing technology to break
our educational systems and it is
happening around us now you might argue
this to be far more of a futuristic
scenario and just a matter of hot debate
so let’s just refocus and look at the
things happening right now and you will
see that this is not the case we are in
a dynamic uncertain world powered by a
series of technological innovations
powered by digital revolution we are
becoming increasingly reliant on
interactive technologies for personal
use from social media and entertainment
to everyday activities such as shopping
banking to even using a telephone this
is the age of self-driving cars drone
deliveries robotic citizens and even
space holiday digital revolution has
brought with it unimaginable
opportunities for humanity but also
poses significant challenges that could
lead to an existential crisis if not
addressed properly we can talk about
this great power of digital connectivity
but according to UNESCO more than 750
million people across the globe are
digitally illiterate so as digital
skills becomes necessary life skills how
do we connect this vast majority
of socially marginalized sections of
society to this digital world it is this
question that led four of us Cambridge
students to come up with his idea of
turning slums into silicon valley’s by
engaging training and matching
marginalized youth in slums to coding
jobs now countries like India going
digital and cashless when over 70% of
its population have no proper access to
Internet is an astronomical problem to
deal with this is an onion she is one
among the 400 million youth trapped in a
vicious cycle of poverty and deprivation
at the bottom of the pyramid
completely disconnected from the so
called digital revolution of our times
we wanted to help youth like anemia by
using the power of Technology through a
massive open online platform which
teaches these people digital and coding
skills and it is based on a one-to-one
tutoring program of the Oxbridge model
we also get them placed with matching
jobs now while we were doing this we
noticed that suddenly the low-level
coding jobs have started disappearing
from the face of what it strucker’s that
automation apocalypse is taking shape
posing serious social economic political
cultural and identity crisis digital
revolution
opens doors to immense possibilities for
improving education through virtual
learning online tutoring apps and other
social startups that aid this movement
but on the other hand it is breaking our
education as we have seen in the example
of PhDs
we are clearly failing the race to train
our next generation to rise up to an
unknown uncertain and challenging future
that awaits all of us it is this
observation that motivated me and my
brother to take a deeper and closer look
at educational systems across the globe
what we noticed with startling numbers
of unskilled graduates rising suicide
and depression rates we knew it is high
time to restructure education we
identify that the root cause of all
these issues boil down to the fact that
no focus is given to an individual’s
interest rather a focus is imposed on an
individual eventually leading to
mounting pressure discontent and an
unending struggle to fit into a
professional career unsuited for this
particular individual now
having discovered why this was happening
we asked ourselves how do we solve this
we looked at our country India with over
1.5 million schools with 300 million
students now that is 10 times the
population of all Scandinavian countries
put together India is also the youngest
country in the world with 50% of its
population below 25 and 65 percent of
its population below 35 that is roughly
800 million people we are talking about
to put that into a better perspective it
is an entire population of Europe put
together now considering this gigantic
numbers along with the rising
unemployment rates and job losses due to
automation India has a monster to deal
with also unlike most countries when it
comes to education boats curriculum and
institution types in the other rich
diversity which further complicates the
problem the worsening part is that we do
not have a centralized normalization
procedure meaning to different
individuals completing the same course
from two different institutions do not
have a common baseline or guideline to
be compared with we understood that if
we could solve this in the Indian
context this can be replicated anywhere
else across the globe and thus our
social adieu tech startup was born there
are a number of companies across the
globe producing content for helping
innovating education but traditional
classrooms with absolutely no access to
high-tech facilities are at a
disadvantage here is these neglected
classrooms
are used purely from a data perspective
we can change the life and career of
every student now
with this idea we started a platform
which can capture data from an existing
school environment using our artificial
intelligence modules we then derive
meaningful connections and correlation
to spot skills and behavioral aspects of
each individual so that precise focus is
given to the right skill development we
also ensure that all the stakeholders in
the system that is teachers parents and
students are very well aware of each
student’s capability so that they are
always measured with the right scale now
imagine imagine this world where a
student who aspires to be a poet is
judged for their literary skills rather
than their poor skills in geometry this
is our vision our vision is to empower
every student to prepare them for an
uncertain future by helping them do what
they are good at today we have explored
how to social tech startups are using
technology as a disruptive tool for
restructuring educational systems to
adapt to the new world order this is why
I believe that social educational tech
initiatives are crucial to the 21st
century as they have this incredible
potential to innovate education
as well as connect the bottom of the
pyramid to the ongoing digital
revolution of our times let us not allow
technology to break our education join
us and the likes of us in reinventing
educational systems and molding human
beings who are more human than ever
thank you all thank you very much [Applause]
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