Categories
Uncategorized

School Influence Interconnect

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

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Increase School Admissions | Enhancing enrolment at your school by improving the School Brand

Try this video to start with the basics

Categories
Uncategorized

Become a School Education Influencer

There are four primary reasons for which an Educator / School Leader should consider becoming an education influencer.

1. Career growth in the job

2.To create an influence and impact in the education fraternity

3. Starting a parallel career as an independent educator (a trainer, a consultant etc)

4. To improve your current business as an Independent Educator

THE FIRST PROGRAM (IN JUNE)

We launched the first session of #BecomeAnInfluencer, a one month long hybrid (internet + Physical event) based program (through instant messaging, phone and online video) to let them understand the Blueprint to become an Influencer.

The program was delivered from May 26, 2019 to June 30, 2019.

Which included a physical workshop at both ends of the program.

The Wisdom | May 26, 2019 @ Hotel Aloft by Marriott | 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (including Lunch and Two times Tea/Coffee/Cookies)

The Wrench | June 1, 2019 to June 30, 2019 | four WhatsApp enabled week long program | Average engagement 45 to 90 minutes in a day

The Wind Up | June 30, 2019 @ Hotel Aloft by Marriott | 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM (including Lunch and one time Tea/Coffee/Cookies)

And at the end of the program, people became a part of EdMonks Education Influencer Community (Free for one year)

Welcome to ‘EdMonks Education Influencer Community | EEIC’.

At EEIC everyone will help and collaborate with each other to provide opportunities of influence.

The first batch of Become An Influencer Program only 10 participants were accepted for the program. There were 2 Remote participants too.

We have got amazing testimonials that will be shared soon over here.

THE NEXT PROGRAM (OCT-DEC 2019)

The brochure of the next program will also be available on August 20, 2019 which is a revised program with a 3 months long period and a 12 step Blueprint. We will understand one step every week.

The Wisdom | Sep 22, 2019 @ Hotel Aloft by Marriott | 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM (including Lunch and Two times Tea/Coffee/Cookies)

The Wrench | Oct 1, 2019 to Dec 30, 2019 | WhatsApp enabled 12 week long program | Average engagement 30 to 90 minutes every day

The Wind Up | Jan 05, 2020 @ Hotel Aloft by Marriott | 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM (including Lunch and one time Tea/Coffee/Cookies)

You may also join the program as a Remote participant. The physical workshops will not be available but the content will for sure be available as a video course.

If you are an educator, you can Transform yourself into an influencer and may solve all your career blues In Just-3-month,

The #Become-a-School-Influencer program will help its participants in a substantial manner.

Mr Anupam Kaushik, the resource person for this program, is a well-known mentor in School Innovation, School Branding and Personal Branding space. You may search for him online to find some really amazing testimonials about him.

For any further details, please WhatsApp / email us on +91-9818885050 /kausho@gmail.com.

Categories
Future Ready School

Preparing Students for the Future of the Workplace

Both the School and the college leaders must understand that the conventional wisdom that says ‘the school need to prepare kids for the college and the college need to prepare them for the life’ is getting outdated.

The definition of the college is changing dynamically. Students are opting all new streams for the college, which are not at all conventional, which have rather not existed until recently.

The conventional programs at colleges are having less and less takers and why not, the big commitment, by these conventional streams in college, to deliver a successful career, has time and again failed. The struggling and depleting conventional higher education is creating a responsibility shift, where the school are now expected to prepare kids for life. But the Schools, whose entire concept until recently has been to prepare kids for college, do not have a clue, how to prepare kids for life.

In a recent report, Linkedin said that more than 35% of the subscribers present on the platform identify themselves as a Freelancer or as a Consultant. An even important thing is that it is a growing trend.

Be it in the name of solopreneur, entrepreneur, knowledgepreneur, technopreneur and the endless words with a ‘preneur’ suffix, more and more people today are opting to work for themselves in the Gig Economy. But on the contrary, the current curriculum of our schools or colleges do not even mention about this, forget about preparing the kids for the great shift.

If you try to observe closely, a polarisation in the job market is evident.

Today, at one hand, we have high paying Data Science, Fintech or Technology Jobs. People are working on block-chains, Machine Intelligence, Internet of Things and many such other technology, which will shape an entirely unknown future and on the other hand are the blood-sucking, painstaking Sales or Data Entry jobs. The jobs in between are absent.

In the wake of such polarisation getting ready for the Volatile Uncertain Complex and Ambiguous future is not going to be easy. We need to identify the right techniques, technology and content to fix this gap. Do we really understand, what the right questions are?

I chose a question

  • What kind of education do we need to get ready for the workplace of the future?

and in January 2017, I started a research on the Futuristic Education, more precisely, ‘how or what can we do to get ready for the future?’ through my initiative www.EdMonks.com.

In January 2016, when at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Klaus Schwab, introduced the world with the concept of ‘the 4th industrial revolution’ and many people like me realised the power of observing trends.

World Economic forum has given enough data to confirm the arrival of the 4th industrial revolution and told that this is the biggest revolution in the history of mankind.

While all earlier industrial revolutions were caused by one or at max two technologies, this 4th one is being fed by scores of different technologies at the same time.

Robots, Drones, Big Data, Mobile Computing, Machine Intelligence, Mixed Reality, 3D-Printing, Internet Of Things, Block-chains, Quantum Computing and many other such technologies, each one capable to lead their own industrial revolution, are changing the world, that we live in, upside down.

The bigger issue with these technologies is that majority of jobs of today will disappear in the future. For example

  • Automation and Robots will replace factory workers

  • Artificial Intelligence will sweep jobs across the profession.

(Just imagine, soon we will not need drivers because vehicles will go driver less)

  • Delivery of almost anything may now be done through Drones.

  • 3D-Printing will disrupt the prototyping world, which will open phenomenal possibilities.

  • Block-chain may actually make your governance free of people.

Although each of these technologies is capable of mass layoffs but at the same time they will also introduce new kinds of opportunities.

The delivery of job will now be done through a new ecosystem that we call ‘The Gig Economy’, which have three prime segments

The BLUE World | It will primarily include big corporate with huge turnovers but very small number of people directly working for them.

The ORANGE World | The masses will be here, who offer their services to the BLUE world not as a job but as a one time GIG and will be compensated for it. Majority of the work by the BLUE world that cannot be done by machines, will be given to the ORANGE world through gigs.

The GREEN World | Here will be the people, who will work for a cause. They will be working on sustaining earth resources and stopping or at least delaying the extinction of humans. For more information, you can please read 17 Goals of Sustainable development by United Nations.

Conventional education is all about information accumulation, years and years of cramming, and surprisingly we call it knowledge-based education.

But with the help of Automation and Artificial Intelligence, a simple robot or let’s call it a humanoid cobot is now able to process the entire knowledge that you have acquired in years, in a matter of few hours or less.

And hence to stay relevant in the future and in the Gig Economy,, the need of the hour is to learn the skills that will keep you relevant in the future and that cannot be easily implemented in machines. So skills like Complex Problem Solving, Critical thinking, Global Perspective, Service Orientation, Negotiation, Vision etc are the kind of things need to be emphasised upon in the educational institution.

The students will also need a personal brand, because the fee you want to charge in the gig economy, will be decided only by your personal brand.

In the conventional system, when a student comes out from an educational institution, one usually experience a dilemma no experience so no job, so only a limited information available to showcase on their resume of a fresher like the academic achievements, the biological data, academic or sports achievements etc, but no experience

However in the gig economy, the student may have a lot of things added to her or his profile that gives them extra advantage. The resume may include (only by putting in a small effort)

  • An Online portfolio of her or his designs

  • or An e-book on one’s passion

  • or An Online Course as an instructor

  • or Helping some startup/community on some event management

And countless other things that may improve the candidature to secure a job or a gig.

It may look difficult to you in the beginning but the world of the Internet is full of opportunities. In my research that i did at 18 schools in Delhi under the name ‘The Future Ready Student’, I was happy to see that 6% of the students, who participated on my programs were already involved into the gig economy.

I also realised, they were all growing, not because of the schools, but despite the schools.

Can we change it?

Anupam Kaushik

The contributor of this article is a Public Speaker, Author and the torch-bearer of disruptive innovations in education. He run EdMonks, a content platform working on overall education improvement to get the masses ready for the 4th Industrial age.

To know more about him, please visit about.me/kausho