Why we created the ‘School Influence Interconnect’
When Prof M M Pant shared his vision with Mr Anupam Kaushik that the future of education will be made through neo influencers whom he call ‘Independent Educators’. Mr Kaushik could connect the whole idea with the problem that he was trying to solve and decided to make the vision of Prof Pant a reality.
The Problem
When we observed that the whole school education ecosystem here in India is in bad shape, with our research we realised that a major change can be made by a very small input if we focus on School Leaders education.
But there is no defined mechanism, no test, no license, not even a training program to become a worthy school leader and the only way the leaders are learning is through physical events, conferences and workshops.
But this whole segment is distributed into two parts, let’s call it the BLACK economy and the WHITE economy.
The key driver in the Black economy is fame or recognition. So, people here are not putting the work on the ground and instead they are willing to buy recognition. As there are buyers, there are many organised platforms in the black economy to sell the recognition in the form of Certificates and Awards and positions.
However, in the White economy, the key driver is Knowledge and people in here are happy to work on the ground and are focused on the joy of learning and the bliss of a positive experience.
The organised platforms of the Black Economy keep inviting a few selected people from the white economy so that some relevant stuff can be talked about in their events. But these invited people become the smartest person in the room, so they are just teaching, not learning anything. The audience here however is not interested in learning, they are all interested in photographs with the dignitaries that they can flaunt on their social media.
And hence the overall ecosystem of school education is going down on the knowledge aspect.
At EdMonks, we decided to crate an organised platform in the White Economy ‘School Influence Interconnect’ so that people who care for knowledge can share and learn new things.
We know that this platform is against the market dynamics because most of the people are Fame driven and not caring for knowledge, but we are betting on those school leaders and educators, who are really putting the work on the ground, what if they are less in number.
How the ‘School Influence Interconnect’ organised
We did a pilot event in August 2019 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi and got an amazing response. Earlier we were planning to do multiple such events all over India, but then we decided to host only one in the whole year.
Every participants made a moderate financial contribution to attend the event which was sufficient to manage the venue and associated expenditure.
In SII, every participant is expected to be a speaker. Here the Mantra is ‘if you cannot speak, you cannot attend the event’.
The SII invites applications from people involved in school education and a few people are selected out of those to attend the event. In August 2019.
The pilot event was planned for a day with 20 people. We got 56 applications, but we could accept only 13 as almost every participant was expected to be an education influencer already.
Everyone was expected to present a prepared talk on for around 15 to 18 minutes max. No talk is expected to be around trends or FAKE GYAN. Every participant was expected to first identify a topic around School Improvement and had to get the consent by the EdMonks team along with its flow and only then, they can speak on the event. Almost every participant had a conversation of at least 2 to 3 Hours before finalising the topic.
This way we tried to improve the experience through the right kind of content that would be worthy for the school leaders.
And the good thing was that every participant just loved the experience. They claimed as if it was something beyond what they have ever experienced.
What will people get from ‘School Influence Interconnect’
No one is expected to join these events for GYAN because all these talks will be video-graphed and will be shared Free of cost through Youtube, instead people will join it because of a GREAT NETWORKING OPPORTUNITY with the education influencers and to DEVELOP THEIR OWN INFLUENCE in the fraternity.
It will also provide a great opportunity to CREATE AN IMPACT in the school education ecosystem.
Unlike SII 2019, which was a one day event with 13 participants, SII 2020 will be a 3 day event with around 50 participants.
If you are a school leader and wish to get more information or want to join our SII 2020, please contact us through contact@edmonks.com.
Sponsorship opportunities also welcome through same email.
Who all joined the pilot ‘School Influence Interconnect’
This was first such event to create a new ecosystem and some really amazing people accepted to share their wisdom through the platform. Here is the list of the people who were accepted.
Prof M M Pant | Event Chief Mentor | Founder @ LMP Education Trust
Mr Anupam Kaushik | Event Curator & Producer | Founder @ EdMonks
And here is the list of attendees in an alphabetical manner.
Attendees in Delhi
Ms Aishah Siddiqua | Contributing Speaker | Principal @ Dubai National School, Dubai | Founder & CEO @ iTransformi
Mr Anirudh Gupta | Contributing Speaker | CEO @ DCM Group of Schools
Ms Archana Gaba | Contributing Speaker | Director Principal @ Saint Kabir Gurukul, Punjab
Mr Ashok Thakur | Contributing Speaker | Founder @ Muni International School, Delhi
Mr Ashish Bhatnagar | Contributing Speaker | Principal @ Shaoxing International School, China
Ms Chhavi Kaushik | Contributing Speaker | Empathy Enabler, Delhi
Ms Chetan Bansal | Contributing Speaker | Director Shemrock World, Zirakpur and Principal Vedanta International School Chandipur, HP
Ms Jyoti Arora | Contributing Speaker | Principal @ Delhi Public World School, Noida Extension
Ms Manisha Anthwal | Contributing Speaker | Director @ Superhouse Education Foundation
Ms Namrita Rathee | Contributing Speaker | Head of Elementary School @ Khaitan Public School, Noida
Major Pravin Singh | Contributing Speaker | Director @ Swamy Radhey Krishna Academy, Raipur
Ms Rakhi Gibrani | Contributing Speaker | Principal @ SADA School, Karnal
Mr Thakur Mulchandani | Contributing Speaker | Director @ Sunrise English Private School, Abu Dhabi
