 at final discussion in about 10 minutes. Hello everyone, hello everyone. I welcome you all to the day three of Mesfit Mega Summit. I would like to start with introducing our organization, Brooks Ecosystem Foundation. Brooks Ecosystem Foundation, as you are aware, is an innovation think tank building a cohesive ecosystem. We facilitate economic development through innovation and entrepreneurship program designed to suit the needs of geography and also create a platform for different entities with support entrepreneurs to operate under a single umbrella. I'm happy to say that this 12th November, we had formally completed two years of our existence. Brooks Ecosystem was started with the purpose of building a ecosystem for supporting innovators and startup working at grass root level. We understand that local problem needs local solutions, especially applicable in tier two and tier three regions where the opportunities and exposure is quite low comparatively. These regions required a hand holding and support to vision development within. That's where Brooks Ecosystem wants to make a difference. We have an internal saying in the audience that it's not about having an idea, it's always about making them happen. And our sole reason for existence to help entrepreneurs make them happen. Now coming to misfits for what we are here for, we started with this thought right at the peak of pandemic. We came across phenomenal innovators and inventors who are looking to ease our journey through pandemic. We wanted to recognize these individuals and find the most impactful ones out there from the South Asian region. The final mega pitch event is happening between 12th and 22nd November. Brooks Ecosystem over the last three months have hosted a pitch event series in the South Asian region called a Misfit. The Misfit is focused toward providing a stage to social impact change makers, be it startup, nonprofit or innovators who are building solution, tech or non-tech that can improve the quality of life in these regions. While we say this is a pitch event, it's not just another pitch event. We ensured that there is a community that built after this exercise to engage all stakeholders, change maker and entrepreneurs. The pitch session happened virtually in 15 locations across the South Asian region, which each location hosting approximately 10 social entrepreneurs and from which the top two were selected for the mega pitch event that is being showcased that will showcase the top 30 Misfit from the region across. We are thankful to all the partners who are opened up to support the entrepreneurs, especially GIZ, who came at the last phase of Misfit and enabled us to take Misfit, go in their partner countries. They had given space to our top 30 entrepreneurs and impact makers. We are also powered by Telugu, which is an all-in-one enterprise communication partner. And happy to say that we are also recognized by startup India. Our other amazing global partners who helped us at the global level. They supported us with the benefits and outreach since the beginning of this initiative. Next, you see all our regional partners, which was, I mean, the number is quite unexpected for us too. We are happy that they helped us to execute the regional events in such a smooth fashion. They had helped the global partners and the regional partners, have helped us through giving us various benefits. Telugu has given us 3,000 USD credit for their products and they are giving 20% discount to all the participants. TriFi is giving 500 USD dollars of Google crowd credits and 100 USD dollars in crowd data credits, with 90% off on their HubSpot professional. The ATM built for India is sharing their payment gateway and wallet at zero transaction fee. And that too, with a complete integration support. FundWise is providing seed funding assistance to our top 30. VCAD, Social Impact, SIC, ThinkCubate, Estrella Global Ventures, they are providing seed funding opportunities to all our top 30. MSG 91 has given $1,600 messaging credits. Global Shapers, AIC Banasthili and triple IT Hyderabad has pledged for mentoring support to all the top 30 winners. Autodesk Fusion 360 is giving one year free startup license to all the top 30. EduVance is giving a pro license version of their business plan tool, Anthropaedia to all the participants involved in MSFETS. Kodo is giving not just 30% but 50% discount for their Kodo corporate card. The startup buddy has given a premium membership for a span of two months on their platform. Eat Launchpad has also given a premium membership on their platform with $5,000 AWS credit for top 30. Startup Grind is giving an opportunity to become a premium membership of their community as well. So far, we started with MSFET in August 2020 and would be completing that in November 2020. So far, we had covered approximately 20 regions and found top 30 MSFETS who are change makers and impact entrepreneurs. This wouldn't have been possible without the 90 plus global and regional partners that have trusted us and supported us in our journey. We found this 30 MSFET out of 200 plus applicants that had applied through from August to October. We had since then completed 252 hours of total even with 14.6K reach on YouTube and 13K reach on Twitter. We also have 64K reach on Instagram and 78K reach on Facebook along with 30K reach on LinkedIn. This couldn't have been possible without the support of our partners and participants. And we are also thankful for the brains behind the final series, Helmofate, Makeshift, and GIZ who were instrumental in designing the experience that all of us are going to share in the next couple of hours. Now I would like Anupam to take over. So this is Anupam Pandey. I'm into operations at Rukh Shnispeth. And yes, I hope you all are set for the upcoming discussions and pitches. So moving on to the first panel discussion. Today we have this amazing set of personalities with us who are leading the markets. So our first guest for the event is Ms. Sherwari, co-founder and CEO at MISTIF. She likes educating people for embracing change by being flexible, adaptable, creative, and critical. At Makeshift, Sherwari with her team are on the mission of inculcating innovative mindset individuals to kill-based education. Their core work lies in innovating for education for helping schools and educators to adapt to the changing times and implement skills-based education and integrating curricular and pedagogical changes to educational innovations. We welcome you, Ms. Sherwari and very happy to have you. So the next guest for today's event is Mr. Jonathan Joshi. He is the CEO at Eduvence. He is currently heading a company in the industrial IoT and ethics sector. He's a system design expert with over nine years of experience in architect designing and executing projects in the field of embedded systems, industrial IoT, vehicular telemetry, augmented reality, and reconfigurable computing. Eduvence focused on introducing students to the latest technological trends and allowed them to understand technology by implementation. We are very happy to have you, Mr. Jonathan. Welcome to this mega event. We are. Yeah, thank you. So our next guest for today's event is Mr. Matthew Munn, impact diplomat. He is a high school student with a passion for model United Nations and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, LDD. As a North American diplomat for the Munn Impact Organization, he brokers partnerships, runs events, and supports initiatives for the LDD. His work as a lead mentor in the Munn at home program also helps to train students in the basics of Munn. Munn is model United Nations. We are very happy to have you, Matthew. Welcome to this event. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. And yes, the moderator for panel G1 is Ms. Amrita. She is the co-founder of Thinkforce Principles with at least with around 15 plus years invested in building brands. Amrita is an award-winning integrated marketing specialist, creative entrepreneur, and a brand solutions consultant. She helps companies and entrepreneurs meet their KPIs by transforming them into people focused, purpose-led, narrative-based, tech-enabled brands. I would like to hand over the stage to Ms. Amrita. Over to you, Ms. Amrita. Hello, my name is Anupam. Yeah. Hi. Hi, Matthew. Hi, Jonathan. Lovely to have you as part of this panel and we're just waiting for Shalpuri to join in. But I think till she just comes on board, I think the topic of today's panel discussion is one of my favorite topics, which is about education. Education for problem-solving, education for creative problem-solving. And I think when I was going through your individual profiles and just reading up about the kind of work I'll have individually all done, it's just so encouraging. So I think I would like to spend the next, you know, the larger part of today's chat to get to know about your individual journeys and what really made you all build what you're building, right? But before that, I think just to set up sort of a common context, I had a few questions which I thought we could just have a discussion on. These are common questions. And I would love your inputs on, you know, how you look at it. So I think, you know, in my career so far, largely when we look at any businesses looking at or any individual who is an entrepreneur is, either it could be, you know, and a professional or an entrepreneur, things of problem-solving or wanting to learn about problem-solving and applying it into their work, the thing is I should go to a B-school, right? A B-school is often a very... Hi, Shalveri. Hi, Amrita. Hi. Hi. We just started and I think I've just had a... I said, you know, I would like to have a very individual, you know, take the viewers through your individual journeys. But before that, I think what I was just telling and sharing with Matthew and Jonathan was that one of the common, this theme is very popular and has a lot of interest. So I think would be before we get into the individual perspectives would be nice to get your comments and some common questions which one tends to have around this subject. Sure, right? So I just started asking one question which was about, you know, the need to go to a B-school is quite often considered when one wants to learn about or get trained in the process of problem-solving and applying it into businesses, right? So how do you teach the business of problem-solving to creative learners, right? I think I could one of my questions to just get your perspectives on. Okay. What would your... Okay, so I never went to B-school and basically I'm coming from engineering background after that I pursued MA in education. So contextualizing problem is very important part from my understanding rather than... So you see the mentality of breaking down problem in the B-school graduates, which is really good. They think logically, but sometimes they miss the perspective of background, like what is happening in the background? What is happening in the ecosystem? So I think there comes the training of liberal arts, there comes the training of general awareness. So that I think liberal arts or any discipline related to that will help you to inculcate in yourself. So one thing you need to empathize with people. So empathy is very, very important. You need to have the quality to listen first. After that you are processing that information. So the processing of information comes very well with the engineering and the B-school mindset. But I think the context and research behind that comes with design background, comes with liberal arts background. So that is my take. So it doesn't mean that everyone should ignore B-school. No, I don't say that. B-school training is very important. But just to have the multidisciplinary attitude, I think the new education policy is doing some bit of a change in higher education regarding that. So that will be wonderful to see how a B-school graduate can also engage with discussions, you know, rather than just breaking down things and getting into management mindset. So how can they also engage in constructive criticism or constructive discussions? So problem solving I think comes in a holistic way there. Okay, very interesting. Thank you, Jonathan. Your views on this? So first of all, I don't believe you need an MBA for to be a good problem solver, right? So I've had the honor of working with some of the top minds in the country at McKinsey also, right? They are known to be problem solving powerhouses. And what I've observed is the MBA degree just gives you an introduction or an ecosystem of what business is, right? Whereas problem solving is an innate capability in a person, right? And that capability has to be developed over time. It's not that two years of B-school will suddenly make you a good problem solver, correct? Because you know that because, I mean, I'm not gonna take names, but there are, we've seen multiple B-schools, right? You have right from the top to, and I'm not ranking others, I'll cause a controversy there. But I'm saying that if you keep them at a certain, so you can see that there is a difference in problem solving capability because of the input metric itself. What does it show? The point is that the damage is done fairly early in a good way or a bad way, right? Right at when you're from fifth grade, fourth grade, right? That's where problem solving really starts to develop. By the time you're in first year engineering, the damage is already done, right? In a good way or the bad way, right? So problem solving for me is if I have my cousins, if I have students that I teach, I say, look, you know what, just go out explore, right? Go out looking at different things and ask why this happens, right? Because that feedback loop of asking why it happens. And I'm keeping things very simple, right? Because problem solving is all about, you can have a child learns, if it does not fail five, six times falling down, how does it understand? So I put a lot of value to failure, right? It sounds very commonsensical, but most people are scared to fail. Most, including entrepreneurs, right? That what if this goes wrong? But I believe that, you know, that loop has a lot of merit in it. And I think that's what consultants get paid for, right? Because they know where things fail, right? And I think that's where problem solving is built around is, if I have to put one thing, if I have to teach somebody for problem solving, just go learn how to fail first. Amazing. With five, try different things and fail. Because that's how you develop, right? And I being a consultant, I mean, you've just said something that I've been living and experiencing, so I've been learning like that. So I completely relate with you. Thank you for that, Jonathan. Very well, Matthew, what are your views on this? First off, I honestly can't really speak from an entrepreneurial perspective because obviously I don't have any money at this age nor do I. I do know of several people who have, you know, started their own businesses, but fundamentally what MUN Impact is focused on is really empowering youth to make changes. And of course, that's not necessarily by monetizing their ideas. So one example of some of the programs that we started, so students from MOLU and have been inspired to start not monetized initiatives. So one example would be Project Aposco that, you know, just off the top of my head was an initiative started by several students from our organization. And what it basically is, you know, it's basically a science curriculum advisor. So they do contracts with schools and they design like science curriculum and STEM curriculum as a whole for them. And, you know, they have a huge impact. They're like really making a big impact even though it's not necessarily, you know, like a solid business entrepreneurship kind of deal. So for example, right now they're in talks with a bunch of schools in Liberia to redesign curriculums that would impact up to 30,000 students. So like that's, you know, something really great on them that they've been able to have these ideas. But honestly, as a whole, you know, speaking more generally and for students, it's really not about having a regimented system. So from what, you know, the discussion's been kind of going into talking about, you know, business schools, of course, you know, understanding the foundationals are important, but also there must be that room for creativity, you know, because we're talking about creative solutions, creative people, really giving people the freedom to explore and Mr. Jonathan said to fail as well and ultimately really come up with great solutions. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Matthew for sharing that. Another question was, why is there a need to learn problem solving and how does it just to create positive social change, you know? So I think Matthew would love to start with you on that. You know, kind of drawing back previous, what was previously said, the fundamentals of like, you know, problem solving, there are principles, but those aren't like the most important things, but I'd say the most important steps teaching and this kind of ties into a new initiative that MUN impact is starting. We've just rolled it out this year. It's basically to create communities for students to work together to invent solutions. And once again, I'm so sorry, I can't speak really from the perspective of like a business person. No, the discussion was never about being too much of a business, but I was just like, that was just one of the questions. So I would love to hear it from your perspective. So please, let's complete this slide. Yeah, for sure. Thank you. So basically right now there's an initiative in the works to create, using online forums to create basically hubs for students to sort of group together and work to create ideas. And it's really not a top down classroom setting, you know, it's really students just collaborating with each other. They get opportunities to meet because, you know, right now it's COVID. So they meet virtually to discuss their ideas and work on blueprints, prototypes, whatever it is. And the point is it's very free flow. And, you know, it's really about having an open mindset, having the freedom to explore what you want to do, being not afraid to fail, and just considering all your options. Lovely. Thank you. Jonathan, any views on that or how to really, how can, what can we learn from problem solving that can help us to, how can it create positive social change? On the problem on its head, right? So to create positive social change there, we're trying to solve a social problem, right? That I'll just put it in a more simple way. Social problems are tougher to solve than business problems. Because business problems at the end of the day, you know, there is a system put in place and there is a method to that madness. But social problems, there is no method, but there's only madness, right? If you look at, like, let's take a problem statement, you want to educate all kids in India. The problem statement sounds so simple, correct? But for anybody who's tried educating in India will really understand the socioeconomic challenges, number one, the technological challenges, then you've got the systemic challenges. So to basically put all of that in place, you will have to have a good problem solving capability. And that, and I would like to add Sherwari's point there that with a good amount of empathy attached to it, it is problem solving. Now the question is how do we teach people problem solving for that? Again, it comes down to the same point is it is your regular problem solving capabilities with empathy, with a strong element of empathy attached to it. So if I want to be a good problem solver for a social cause, right? Or impactful social cause, then A, I have to be a good problem solver with base needed is analytical capability to think outside the box, to ask questions and to fail all of those points which we'll discuss. But the empathy factor is very important because and also to be realistic, right? That's another point, right? People who go attack social causes and fail fundamentally, they're not being realistic. They are being idealist or being optimist also, right? Everything, especially India teaches you about social causes left, right and center. So to add three qualities, empathy and sorry just two qualities, empathy and realism, right? Adding to their regular qualities that you need as a good problem solver. I would put that need those three things in one bucket to be able to solve social problems. That's amazing. Thank you for breaking it down. It's so simple to remember. Thank you. I'll show you your points. Yeah, so I agree with what Jonathan said because he put it very simply. I would say social change is a big terminology, you know? Somebody who is into social work or saying that, okay, we are driving some change in the society. It's very, very big thing, vast thing to imagine. And we need to understand that we as a society where are we? I mean, where is our standing as a society? First, you need to understand that thing and problem solving attitude adds on to that. It is not that one fine day you come up with something and you just start solving one problem. It doesn't come like that. You have to first experience few things. You need to develop your capabilities like simply putting they are just higher order thinking skills in a child, you know? When we talk from the pedagogical perspective or child psychology perspective. So once you start developing these higher order thinking skills in a child, automatically this mindset will come. And when you have programs like coding is there now, then MUN Impact is doing great work in that sector. So all these bootcams programs adds on to your capacities to solve problem, right? Because they give you some kind of exposure with other people. And when you start mingling with other people, when you start living the life that you are not comfortable with. I think that makes you to think and take that first step. Okay, this is something bothers me. This is something worrisome. So can I take a small step to redesign a small element? It cannot be a social change like Jonathan mentioned how to fix Indian education systems problem. It is not in our capacities. We as organizations need to come together to fix that. But as an organization, what makeshift can do or what everyone's can do, they need to decide their own small bucket of work and then work together with each other's, leverage each other's capacities. Absolutely. No, I completely hear you on that. And in fact, now I have a specific question for you, you committed to creating new programs for fostering the spirit of innovation in individuals. So what is the 21st century skill-based education according to you, which is needed to inculcate a problem-solving mindset? And I think because you're doing some amazing work with respect to that with makeshift as well. So skill-based education is amazing. Like there's been a lot of us have been upgrading skills, but what is this 21st century skill-based education and how can I use this mindset or this homework to become a great problem-solver? I would love your thoughts and your journey with makeshift. So Amrita, let me tell you, I think nobody is a great problem-solver. Okay, we go to that position while experimenting and like Jonathan said, while failing again and again. Like I did not know at the first time, when I started thinking about doing something on my own, I did not know what to do, right? But somewhere you need to have that patience to things evolve at their pace. So 21st century skills, like I said, it's a new name given to some specific skills, right? These skills were existing before, I mean, if you can see the other education policies like before I think one came in 86 or then revised in 92, then the national curriculum framework came in 2005 and now we have a new education policy after 20 years of gap. So now they are talking about new skills, but that was specifically mentioned in the previous document of national curriculum framework 2005 as well. Now let me tell you what are these skills? Now critical thinking, scientific temperament and creativity, all these were existing from long, right? So our education system, specifically speaking about Indian education system was designed long back in Britishers time, right? And there were so many trials from governments and to evolve that education system, but still we see that, okay, there are number of problems existing. Now we know what kind of engineering curriculum we have, what kind of other curriculums we have and they are not up to the mark of, I mean, jobs are demanding something else, jobs are demanding some specific skills. They are essentially some kind of hard skills and some soft skills. Now hard skills can be your electronics, your management skills and like, not management, but how to use management tools, but your soft skills are speaking skills, presentation skills or let's say how you think is becoming, it is a hottest thing right now. How do you think? How good you think? How good you are at problem solving? Problem solving is essentially contextualizing the problem, then breaking it down in steps, you apply all your thinking skills, higher order thinking skills to that, add on your creativity and then you are done. So 21st century skills have three buckets like one is literacy, then the competencies, what I said and after that there are few other skills like social emotional skills. So at makeshift what we are doing, we are trying to break this problem, we are trying to solve this problem at three levels. One is school, another is teacher because teacher is a backbone of our education system. And we fail miserably to recognize that because education, everybody is education expert, not a teacher, why? Teachers are the backbone, teachers are teaching for like from long, but we need to recognize their capacities, their importance in the system and then work towards enhancing their capabilities. So we have 21st century skills, 21st century teacher development program where we do some, where we have self-paced courses for them to enhance their capabilities. Then we are doing some school transformation programs for schools to implement things in new national education policy. And for children, we are having these innovation and entrepreneurship program. It is pretty much similar to the social innovation programs and boot camps. Okay, interesting. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Matthew, I have a question for you. I feel very fascinated to like when I got to know that being a high school student, you developed a passion for model United Nations very early on, right? And what really got you in it? And how, what is it? How are you taking that knowledge of model United Nations further through teaching? So what the viewers and listeners today learn from what is the model United Nations trying to teach and some lessons from there for us? So first off, maybe to give some context. If those of you who aren't really familiar, model United Nations functions a lot like I would say mock parliament, student government, those other type of bodies. Essentially, it's basically opportunities for students to come together to debate on certain issues as well as represent countries that are assigned to them. And the very interesting thing about that is so the model United Nations process in and of itself is a problem solving sort of adventure. So basically, so students would come together representing their countries, they debate and they'd be working together to write up a resolution basically to vote on and pass a certain document that could be usually eight to 16 pages long. And it includes a list of, it's basically a massive to-do list for all the countries that are represented at that model United Nations debate. But the sort of unfortunate thing about that is, even though there's this amazing list of ideas, they usually don't ever get implemented. One reason being that, this is really also somewhat of a competitive opportunity for students. People are trying to gain recognition, win awards or just have fun, but also that some of these solutions include the creation of new UN agencies bodies, as well as like funding in the millions of dollars. And that is just unfortunately not something that a students are capable of doing. But there are three very important things that can be taught from model United Nations. Number one being that, students have big ideas. We spend like a lot of time in preparation for model United Nations and not just model United Nations students, but also just students in general. I guess you could say maybe it's because we're young, we're not as pragmatic as older people, but that also sort of gives us a passion to really come up with sometimes insane ideas, but we try our best to try and turn those into reality. That one example being Project Aqua School, which I just shared with you guys. Number two being that model United Nations teaches diplomacy and negotiation. It gives students the opportunity to debate with one another, to present their ideas and to really be not afraid if they aren't accepted by the group. And more importantly, on a more, there are individual opportunities for delegates to interact with each other. And during those opportunities, they have to negotiate with each other to have their ideas be accepted. And combining points one and two, that basically gives students the opportunities to express their big ideas diplomatically. And I think that's very important to cultivate right now. Is to really raise new generation of students who can present their ideas and they can also use that as a medium to express their creativity. And all in all, I think those are like three very valuable like principles that can be taught from all UN, not necessarily solid business principles, but more so, I guess stuff at a foundational level for students who are seeking for careers in entrepreneurship or social change. Thank you so much, Mathew. I think these are skills and values which I think all of us need it, right? Like no matter what we are trying to do in our lives, because if we all could learn how the students are learning and talking to different stakeholders, right? From diplomats to government bodies to grassroots levels. I mean, if that is the kind of training you're giving the students at that early stage, there's so much for us to learn from that because we need negotiation skills all the time, right? So I think, thank you, that's very bad. I used to always wonder what, how can I ever learn anything about it? So good, at least in this chat, I picked up some interesting traits from you about what that model is all about. So thank you for sharing that. Jonathan, now I have a question for you. Very, very, I went through everyone's and saw the amazing structure of curriculum and things that you're offering in terms of education, right? So I think I just have one question for you is what's the need for business planning early on and how does anyone's enable that? Okay, so I'll keep my answer fairly simple, right? So I'm a huge fan of that Pareto's principle as they call it, right, 80-20, right? You all must have heard of the 80-20 principle, right? I've seen that people don't understand that 20% of things, if you keep things simple initially, right? It can give you 80% of your output. And I mean, people might argue 30, 70, 40, 60, I won't get into that. But let's just say there are a fixed small things. First principle, if you take care of them, they will take care of the larger outcome itself. Why am I saying that? Because with eduance, what we thought was, look, we are teaching kids, right? So we were in the higher education space, now we are into the K-12 space. What is our objective? Our objective is to give students an exposure to multiple technologies. Today, they're saying if you become a coder, you'll have VCs at your doorstep. Sorry, that's the wrong way of selling, right? So it's like, what is the genesis of an idea? The genesis of an idea is of an exposure to multiple things put together, correct? Now, so we provided those platforms. Now I'm coming to the answer. The answer is basically, then we said, we need to tie things up by teaching school, mental questions you need to ask as an entrepreneur, right? What are the right, like there are no right answers, right? There are only right questions as an entrepreneur. And we are not, so what do we do is we build this platform called as Anthropedia, okay? It's like a very simple platform. We ourselves say that if you use Anthropedia, you're not gonna be able to make a VC pitch deck. That's not what we are saying, right? But at least from first principles perspective, can you test or can you at least understand what do you need to learn as an entrepreneur? I'll give you an example. I'm not taking any names, but through McKinsey, we did a project for a battery company, right? There, the CMO of the company, correct, did not realize that this product is a good marketing campaign rather than a revenue generation process, a campaign, right? Like first principles, you should know what your outcome is. People miss that. So why? Because he didn't find, he did a mistake in his total market calculation. So it's first principle. You want to know, is there a big enough market there? Now, what we did with Anthropedia is that we put a set of simple questions, where it's the ideas if you want to teach somebody entrepreneurship, be it starting from a six standard or to a 50 year old, correct? Because the concepts are still the same. They don't change. We put together a platform where it's fun. You can vary values, you can change, you can see, oh, did my company make a profit? Did it make a loss? And it's very, it's kind of pseudo gamified with some basic recommendations. The ideas, again, to follow that 80, 20 principle, correct? And that's why we wanted to do that. You learn any STEM technology, whether it's robotics, coding, AR, VR, AI, anything, arts, craft, whatever you want to. We wanted to tie that up in the end with something on entrepreneurship because that gives them the entire journey. Look, I learned robotics. Now, what if I start a robotic company, right? What is it gonna take me to start that? So that's how we decided. So why did we do, like, why we thought of introducing entrepreneurship, how we've done it through entrepreneur and what is the end goal? So that's basically the idea behind what ADVANCE does for entrepreneurship. Okay, thank you so much, Jonathan. That was very, you really simplified it. And I, because I co-founded a company called Think First Principles. I get what you're trying to say as well. And it's very, very important. So I would love for this chat to continue, but given that we have a long day ahead with Misfits. Sorry, but we'll have to wrap up for now. But thank you so much. Very valuable inputs. I have learned a lot. And I'm sure that the viewers and the audience who attended today and watching it would also have learned some amazing principles and values from all of you. Thank you so much, Arie, Jonathan, and... Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Looking to connect with you all individually as well. I'll definitely reach out to Misfits. Thank you, everyone. Have a nice day. Thank you. You too. Bye. Hey, hi, Jitain. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Perfect. Yeah, you're audible. Awesome. Hello. Hi, Rahul. Hi, Anubama. Anubama, I cannot hear your voices a little low. Can you be a little louder? Is it better now? Yeah, it's better now. You can hear me. Cool, cool. So I was saying that the first panel discussion went so good, so moving on to the next panel discussion, panel G2. We again have a few special guests who are doing very good in their respective fields. Okay, so our first guest for next panel discussion is Mr. Jitain Sreshta. He is the Program and Portfolio Manager at Nick Venture Corporation, who has been closely working with startup founders to accelerate their business to the next level. He received his MSC in econometrics from London School of Economics and Political Science, and his background is in finance, economics, and data science. Jitain is also a lecturer at Kathmandu University School of Management, King's College, Nepal, and the British College Kathmandu. Team Misfits, welcome you, Mr. Jitain. We are very happy to have you. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. Yeah, thank you so much. So the next guest for today's panel discussion is Dr. Aparna Rao. She has been a senior project manager at DSSE since 2014, overseeing all operations, coordinating various courses and hand-holding student startups. She liaisons with various departments and centers inside IITB, as well as Mumbai University, Debrugarh University, and Andhra Pradesh. She also engages with Deshpande Foundation, hopefully for their skill in village programs and curriculum development. She also consults for educational institutions and is a Cambridge Certified English Language Examiner. We are very happy to have you here, Dr. Aparna Rao. Welcome in the event. So our moderator for panel two discussion, Mr. Surat Singh, he is a chartered accountant with seven plus years of experience into auditing financial analysis, startup advisory, project finance, and project management with MNCs, private companies and government organizations. He co-founded Groupsh Ecosystem Foundation with a primary aim of building the right startup ecosystem in tier two and tier three cities of India. Would like to hand over the stage to you, Mr. Surat, over to you. Go ahead. Thank you, Anupam. Thank you so much for the wonderful discussion. Do we have Dr. Aparna on the call? Because I cannot see her. I just want to make sure she's audible. Okay, I have a message that Dr. Aparna will join in a few minutes. So I guess I can start the call. Anupam, should I start the conversation with Jitain? Yes, yes, yeah, please go ahead and she will join. Okay. Hi, Jitain, I hope you are doing well. We had a wonderful first session where there was a discussion regarding the topic. So as we start the second panel discussion, I'm glad to have a conversation with these two wonderful panelists we have right now. Mr. Jitain Srishta, who's a portfolio manager at Next Venture Corp. And Dr. Aparna Rao, who's a senior project manager at Desai City Center for Entrepreneurship, IIT Bombay. So they both have a great experience working with the startup ecosystem. And they have a huge experience, a number of years of experience working with entrepreneurs, founders of startups. And they can give us an amazing perspective about the topic. So our topic is educating for instilling creativity and problem solving. So the first question, Jitain, I would like to ask is, like what are the steps to be taken by educational bodies, to instill creativity and problem solving attitude in students? Because we see there is a lot of theoretical studies that goes in our educational institute. But what is the thing that can bring creativity and problem solving attitude in students? Thank you for the question. I think it's better if I answer this question as a lecturer of a university rather than someone who fosters entrepreneurship. So instead of a main job, I'm going to answer this question as a teacher. So I've been teaching in company university for about six and a half years, almost seven years now. So what I've noticed is, yeah, there are a lot of areas of improvement where we can focus on that can improve problem solving and creativity skills. I think one of the few things where we can improve is that educational bodies can actually focus on is, we definitely should add more simulations and gamify most of the courses. The main courses that I teach, I teach economics, I teach operations management. So let me give you an example just for operations management. So this is a course that I've been teaching for the past seven years. And it's been quite a struggle for me to convince educational bodies to invest into third party softwares that can help me simulate the theories and the formulas that I teach the students in class into an actual, let's say, simulations so that they can actually look at or, let's say, see what the results of their decisions are at the end. For example, in operations management, like some of the things that I teach are, there are a lot of topics like inventory management. There is forecasting and all that stuff. So if, let's say a company, for example, forecasts their sales and they make a huge mistake in the initial forecast, a student should be able to actually be able to trace how that is going to impact their bottom line. So it's very difficult for a student to relate to these kind of issues if they, if we just teach them stuff in a linear theoretical manner. So they have to go back and forth in a simulated manner. And I think that itself really will help students to develop their problem solving skills. Yeah. Great, great, Jitain. So I think a very well point mentioned by Jitain was how we can demify different courses and work on the simulation techniques. I think those are needed when we even know the way the things are moving, okay? As we move on from a different generation, like now we have everything tech enabled. So as you mentioned, I think I completely agree with you on the simulation and gamify apart. It can drastically change the way we learn. That is one thing. Another, let's say when I talk about creativity, so creativity is something that you learn in colleges or it can only come with experience. Let's say I have a working experience of three years with startups or multirations and during that phase I learn creativity. Or is it something that can be learned in colleges? Like what's your take on that? Yeah, so the question if I understood this correctly is whether creativity can be learned in colleges or it comes with experience, right? So I think like we should look at the time we spend in college itself as an experience as it's off. So definitely, yeah, I think you should definitely be able to learn creativity in colleges. It really depends on how you teach the course, but I think college is the best place to learn creativity, but it's definitely you can learn it in the real world job as well. But it really depends on the type of job that you take going forward. So some jobs are very bureaucratic and in the kind of jobs you're probably not gonna be learn a lot of creativity, but if you're into consulting and other stuff, then yeah, definitely it does. It definitely helps you become more creative, but I think the college experience is better just because creativity basically helps you broaden your horizons. So just to give you a practical example, right? So I think the way I view creativity is basically the ability of a student to be able to, or not just to anybody, right? To be able to come up with solutions that are slightly out of the convention, right? So it's basically a creativity for a production manager might be different than for a marketer, right? Absolutely. And in this particular case, I would say that creativity is actually so back in college, like one of my professors when I was high school, I think a high school student, he drew this diagram with like nine dots or three by three metrics and he wanted us to like, connect all the dots with four straight lines without lifting the pencil. And that was, I think that's a very common problem that teachers ask their students. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the problem that I'm referring to. And the solution to that problem involves actually like drawing the lines outside of the box, right? And it's a very good example for thinking outside of the box of the creativity kind of issue there. But the thing is like, once the student like, or once the, yeah, I would talk on student, once the student actually knows how to solve that three by three problem, then he can scale the same solution and he can use the same, the learnings from that particular solution to now solve four by four metrics or five by five or even larger scales of the same problem. So that I think tool is something that he probably would have learned in school because he probably would not learn that in a real world job environment. But I think once you've solved a particular problem in a particular way, you can kind of scale that same solution. So it actually helps you broaden your horizons in a certain way that you can use the same set of skillsets that you learned to become more creative in your career. So, yeah, I definitely think college experience is a better way to get creative. There is a, I think after this conversation, something that is clear is during our colleges, also we can learn a lot of creative stuff. But there is a general notion of misconception, I would say that students feel they need, practical experience to get exposed to the outer world and then learn creativity. But then the perspective that you give us with an example that forms the opinion that creativity is something that can be nurtured in college days also. So a good point made by you, Mr. Jirain. My next question would be like, do you think our current educational system teaches us the practical problem solving skills? Like, we have a lot of problems on ground. There are a lot of students, there are a lot of startups, entrepreneurs who are working towards this. But as a student, how can one get exposed to the problems that they can work on or they can build business on? So basically, it's like a student who doesn't have a exposure to the outer world. How can they get exposed to the outer world and learn practical problem solving skills? That's a very good question. Because most of the concepts that students learn can, I mean, they might not be directly applicable to the real world. I mean, I can't really say for the Indian education system because I never studied in India so far. So I don't have first-hand experience, but I think the Nepalese education system is close enough. I would say somewhat similar, but one thing that I've noticed, right, is that this is probably more relevant students in the Nepalese education system are not taught to question what they learn. That is something that I've found and that I kind of wish I could change. So let me give you an example, right? So I also teach economics to 30 or 40 students. And then there are certain very, very simple concepts that we take for granted and we don't want to question it at all. Just for example, let's take the concept of inflation, right? If I ask a student, you know, and if I asked them to define what inflation is, they would just say, you know, it's this steady rise of prices, you know? And then they do not question why it happens and whether or not it's good or not, you know? Because we've lived in this world where we've always seen prices going up, you know, ever since we were small and today we've seen everything going up. And then we kind of accept it as a natural phenomenon, right? And we don't really question why that's happening. And I think the education system that we have here doesn't really ask us to, you know, teaches us to or encourages us to ask these questions that they should be asking. Because although we know it is a natural phenomenon, it's never been that, you know, through, if you look at monetary history, you know, for the past 200 years, generally inflation is something that has just started happening very recently actually, and I wouldn't say recently, but it's something that started after, you know, Nixon took us off the gold standard back in 1971. And that's when, you know, that's when countries, you know, had the power to manipulate their own, their currency supply and that's causing, causing inflation today. But even like in the words of John Maynard Keynes himself, you know, he kind of defined inflation as a theft, you know, of purchasing power of wealth, such a discreet manner that not even one in a million would detect it. And I'm paraphrasing him, of course, I don't use that as quotation, but the students today are not taught why that happens. You know, we just have learned to accept it as it is, if an economist, you know, were to look at what's happening here, who was, you know, who knew what the economy used to work at 50 years ago before the, when we were still in the gold standard. Yeah, obviously he would have asked a lot of questions, but the students today, they kind of just, they don't ask as much questions. I think, and because of this, I think it kind of, when they graduate, they have this set of skills, this set of rules that creates their entire universe. And I think, and that kind of, I think prevents them from applying most of their knowledge into the real world, into the real careers that they eventually end up going into, because you have to be able to, you know, ask questions on almost everything, and you have to be able to demand answers. It's, even when I was young, like I think we, even in Nepal, we had to like learn a lot of things by heart, and we had to memorize a lot of definitions, and that definitely does not help us prepare for the real world. And that has to be changed. I think we have to teach students how to question everything that they learn. So they kind of developed this, this behavior that allows them to understand the workings, or the inner workings of everything that's happening in the economy, the markets, and that is a very essential skill for them to succeed in the long run. I think I completely agree on that. So giving a perspective of the Indian educational system, like you said, the students, they don't question, they don't have the skill of questioning everything. Maybe they accept everything as it is, just because for academic purpose, they want to clear their example or something like that. So they keep on, they don't question, did they have their own thing? Okay, fine, we'll study, we'll buy out. Like you mentioned about your childhood, I had the pretty much same childhood. And I guess most of us in India also pretty much had the same childhood. We just learned everything. We don't question, did they have their own thing? Okay, fine, we'll study, we'll buy out. Like you mentioned about your childhood. I guess my, I guess most of us had the same childhood. We just learned everything. Hello? Hi, I think. There's some technical issues. Yeah, so as I mentioned, the Indian educational system also, we pretty much have the same thing. But things are changing now, like as we have incubator in colleges, we have a lot of events that are happening. We are moving towards the phase where we can, we can question everything. And that is how, I think we can build the problem solving skills. When we question the right thing, that is how we build the skills. Absolutely. So yeah, so my next question would be, like what according to you, Jitain, are the two biggest problem in the market that needs to be solved? I see there are pretty much a lot of problems. But there are two problems as you know, based on your experience, okay? Which are the two biggest problems that you see in the market that the startup should focus on? Okay, so this is, I think, obviously, when you define the word market, right? Then we have, I'm familiar with the Nepalese market, you obviously in India. So there might be a discrepancy if I spoke. No, no, you can actually go ahead with your market, the market you're dealing with. So we can get a perspective of a different economy. Okay, so I can tell you one of the biggest problems that I've noticed, right? This is probably, I hope I'm answering your question correctly here. But one of the biggest problems that I faced in the Nepalese startup ecosystem kind of thing is that most of the founders that I have worked with, right, I wouldn't say most, but a significant portion of the founders that I've worked with that have great products and all that stuff, they kind of like, I feel that they cannot, let's say, understand their unit economics as clearly as good. Yeah, mm-hmm. So to give you an example, right? So if let's say a founder has, you know, produces a nice bottle drink of, you know, a particular orange fruit juicer, let's say a cold pressed juice, right? So the founder should be able to understand the exact factors that are adding up to the cost or production of that particular product, right? They need to understand that if they change or if they make a particular decision, how that's gonna affect the cost or the bottom line. They need to understand basically like the, how the levels of efficiency play out, whether it's worth it or not to invest extra for, you know, a marginal reason in the efficiency. And that's definitely like one of the main problems that I think that founders are not being able to correctly imply. And that kind of affects a whole lot of decisions down the road, like including the pricing decisions, including how they approach their competitors, the market, et cetera. That's one of the issues. The other one is basically that I feel that founders do not clearly understand the importance of cash flow, okay? Yeah, totally, totally. This is, I mean, this may be particularly, I don't know if this is true, Ninge, but in Nepal, this is something that has been a pretty big problem because most founders do not account for the money that needs to be invested for the supply chain, right? When they are planning their businesses. So, and because of that, eventually they kind of end up with cash flow problems, you know, four or five months down the line when they're in their survival stages. And then that's when they have to raise investment in, you know, with a certain degree of desperation. And they end up getting bad deals from investors at that point, because, you know, the investors kind of easily pick up that they're desperate and then they eventually have to, you know, give up larger chunks of equity or, you know, or settle for a deal that they could have, you know, gotten a better one instead. Yeah. I think you have mentioned two very important points. Like, in my experience of working with startup, seeing the whole ecosystem, what I have realized is like you mentioned, okay, the first problem. So I don't think so we have that problem in India regarding the unit economics, okay? So a startup, the founders first, they'll, you know, they'll calculate everything. Maybe they'll come up with unit economics. The problem arises when they, you know, when they practically implement the solution and, you know, when they have the business running, when they have everything, when they want to, you know, formalize everything. And that is where the second problem comes in the picture. Like you mentioned the cash flow problem. So during the planning phase, okay, like, which is the pre-phase of, you know, pre-revenue stage, okay? When you plan everything, they'll plan the unit economics. But when it comes to the cash flow, the practical approach, okay, when they start doing each and everything, that is when they start facing the problem. Also, you know, some of the founders, they think the investor's money is like, you know, we can get as much investor money as we want. We can do cash burn. And there is a lot of cash burn happening. There is a lot of discount being given. I think pretty much it's okay till a point. But if, as a founder, if the startup, they cannot, you know, calculate everything. They cannot take everything into the picture and build a long-term perspective. Ultimately, the idea fails because of the mismanagement of this whole thing, the cash flow, how the investor's money is flowing in and all of that stuff. So I think these are the two very important points that all the founders should consider. When they plan their finances, when they calculate their unit economics, or when they, you know, do their cash flow, they must definitely consider this. I guess we have some problem with our other panelist, Dr. Rappatnarao. She's unable to, she's unable to connect. I mean, she connected twice, but then she got disconnected again. So one last question, like what I have seen is there are currently, there are a lot of students who think they want to work on a particular problem that they are seeing in their market or they wish to work on that particular problem. So what they do is they think of dropping out of the college, okay, because they feel the education that they are learning, okay, that is not, you know, beneficial for them and they would love to start up on their own, okay. So what advice do we have for them? Like, should a student complete their education first and maybe during that phase, they should, along with their studies, they should work on the idea or they can just, you know, leave the degree and they can full-time work on their idea. What do you suggest? What do you have, what suggestion do you have for those people, like, who are students but want to become entrepreneurs? Well, this is, this is a, I mean, this question has to be, you know, broken down from a case-by-case basis. I think it is, obviously, it really depends on the situation that the student is, the level of the amount of investment they've already put into their course. If you're like a fourth-year student in your final year and you're six months away from graduation and you want to drop out then, I mean, I would recommend you to stay in school. That's definitely, that's what I would recommend. I mean, just to give that extra six months in so that you actually, when you graduate, even if you want to work on your business idea, if it doesn't pan out as what you planned, you still have something to fall back on. You have a degree, you can work for a few years and then try again. But if you, let's say, have a brilliant idea that you know is going to succeed and then you have to invest time into the idea, then yeah, sometimes it might make sense to drop out of college and then work on your idea. But I think that's quite rare. I think that's like 10% of the case. That's, or even, I mean, that has to be an idea that is good enough and that something that you believe in enough. I mean, I think all founders believe in their ideas, but it should be something that other people have to come believe in. Believe in that. Believe in the investors and, you know, like if that idea seems like something that's definitely has a lot of potential and then there's no way that the idea would actually work if you end up had to split your time between college and the business, then maybe, yeah, I guess you could consider dropping out. There are certain examples, like a lot of successful people who've dropped out of college, right? I think Bill Gates is one of them and yeah. A lot of famous personalities who've dropped out of college and made a great name for themselves, but that's, I think, less than 0.1% of all the people who dropped out eventually. So you have to look at the statistical odds and not look at the extreme cases here. So I would definitely recommend to stay in school to as long as, I wouldn't say as long as possible, but until you've finished your degree. Because then you have something to fall back on in case your idea doesn't perform as you planned. So you actually have a few times, a few years, you can work a few years, get some extra experience to figure out what went wrong and then try again. So yeah, I guess that kind of is my answer in this case. It's not a really exact, it depends on a case to case. No, no, no, I think what you have mentioned is perfectly, you know, on point. Like we have to adopt a practical approach to it. We cannot just, you know, get, we cannot just think that 0.1% has succeeded and we can, you know, based on that, we can, we should take decisions. So a practical and a balanced approach should be taken when we consider such decisions. And you know, there are a lot of things like completing your degree, like you mentioned, we have something to fall back on. So there's always something. So one final question, I would like, I personally, in fact, like all our audience and I personally would want to know, how has your experience been working in the Nepalese startup ecosystem? Like your journey with, you know, your journey starting like wherever you started and then, you know, your journey as a portfolio manager at an expenditure club. So how has the whole journey been? Yeah, it's been a very rewarding journey. I and myself have learned so much because I actually like, as soon as I graduated from university, after I completed my master's, I came back to Nepal from, instead of working there for a few years and I was one of the decisions that I made because according to my, I would say my analysis, right? I'm actually like looking, I'm not looking forward to it but I'm actually expecting there to be like some sort of a massive financial collapse happening in the next few years or so. And then looking at, you know, what's happening with the coronavirus case and how it's affected the economy and that kind of seems like it's going to happen much sooner now. But if you add the numbers like with, you know, what has been going on in the global economy since after the 2008 crisis, I would say, right? As how most of the world has been operating in like 0% interest rates and all the malinvestments that that has caused and then the bubbles that that probably, you know, has blown up and eventually then now we're in a situation where I don't know, I think almost like over 10 to 15 trillion dollars of global debt like government debt is yielding a negative interest which doesn't even make sense economically, right? Truly, truly. Now we are in this situation where it kind of seems obvious that, you know, there's going to be a financial crisis coming in pretty soon. And we're in, I mean, Nepal itself is a country that is highly reliant on imports on, because we don't produce a lot of, we don't produce anything, right? And the entrepreneurs that in Nepal are mostly, you know, they're focusing on the service sector, they're focusing on trade. And I think at that particular point, I realized that, you know, if I want to, if we in Nepal wants to import anything from the world, we need foreign currencies and the only sources of foreign currency we have, we don't export any products, right? Is, I think it was tourism and we had remittances now because of the case that we, I think we're gonna lose both of them pretty soon. Tourism is pretty bad. Like it's almost non-existent and that's true for everywhere in the world right now. And then even the remittances is it's going down as well. So eventually we're going to come up to a point where I think to, I think it's not going to be financially sustainable for us to be able to import everything. We won't be able to afford it eventually. So unless the Nepalese people become more entrepreneurial and start producing products that are actually, you know, not relying on jobs and et cetera. And I think that's the only, it's been a very rewarding journey since I mean, I've been working with with founders for the past four or five years and I've actually had a chance to learn a lot of things. You know, what are the techniques that have worked? What are the techniques that have not worked? What have, what are the main reasons that have caused companies to fail and all that stuff? And it's been definitely a rollercoaster, right? And it's definitely, it's not something that repeats. You know, it's not a boring kind of topic. It's a new thing every day. So it's been a wonderful experience for me. I think you're working for a noble cause and you're working in a dynamic environment where maybe not now, but in the future, there would be a lot of opportunities. And I'm sure that you'll be playing a very important role in building that ecosystem that needs to be there. That like, in fact, when I talk about India also, we have, we need a lot of manufacturing. Even we depend, like we have a lot of imports from China or let's say any other country. I mean, despite having the, you know, resources here, like if I talk about human resources, okay? So we can also, you know, start manufacturing that is something similar in Nepal. So I am sure that you'll be contributing to the economy, to the startup ecosystem in a very positive way. So thank you, Jitain. Thank you so much. You know, we all had something to learn from you to gain a perspective. And you know, to understand things from both sides, like from a academic side, as well as from a practical side, since you have both the experience. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jitain. I hope all our audience like this conversation and you know, thank you. It was a pleasure being part of it. Thank you very much. Yeah, that was indeed an amazing discussion. Even I got to learn a lot about how to creatively solve a problem from both of you. Thank you so much, Jitain, for joining in and thank you, Mr. Suresh, for the moderation part. Thank you, Anupam. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jitain.