SmartOn Learning, a global education start-up, recently announced its official launch in the Indian market. With offices in New York and Hyderabad, the company specialises in providing new-age career courses, developed in collaboration with leading industry partners and universities. The programmes are offered in blended format, combination of online and class-room based.
Based on the ?plug-and-play cloud based platform?, SmartOn provides an innovative platform for higher education institutes catering to new-age skills. The company is currently developing programmes in entrepreneurship, data analytics and cyber security, and is in the process of executing partnerships with half a dozen private universities in India as clients. They are also ready to partner with government institutions, provided they get a chance. They also have plans to cater to the international markets in the coming year.
Chaitanya Chitta, co-founder of the company, says, ?Higher education is going through significant transformation due to the market forces and advent of new technologies. We see a huge opportunity in India to push edtech and programme innovation in new-age careers by working with universities and colleges for better outcomes of the students.?
SmartOn has launched its first programme in collaboration with Pearl Academy, targeting the e-commerce sector. Though they were expecting a batch of about 100 students to come up for this course, they co-founders with delighted to see 225 students. Sharad Mehra, CEO, Pearl Academy, says, ?We are excited to work with SmartOn as they bring specialised programmes using technology into the higher education classrooms.?
Rakshit Kejriwal, co-founder of SmartOn, says, ?We have a team of global professionals with world-class backgrounds and experiences. We are bringing some of the best education and technology companies across the world to collaborate with us, so that our students acquire a competitive edge. Finally, we are excited to offer quality international education at a minimal cost.? The course fee is R5,000 for a three-month programme.
Research shows that less than 10% of MBA graduates are employable and 83% of engineering graduates are unfit for employment. About 50% of the universities have infrastructure deficiencies and about 40% of universities faculty position remain vacant. SmartOn programmes are targeting careers where there is a significant real-time demand and enabling students to learn in an interactive way to acquire effective and relevant knowledge.
The programmes are offered in two tracks?curriculum-embedded courses and signature programmes?with the motive to address the demands of new-age sectors and careers to make the students? ready while they are in college. In case of the embedded programme approach, courses are integrated into existing curriculum of the education institutes.
SmartOn currently has offices in New York and Hyderabad and will be opening the India head office in Bangalore shortly. Other than the core team, SmartOn has a global team 15 people working in the areas of content development, instructional design and pedagogy, technology and platform development, international relations and operations.
