 So thank you to the entire seller planner who's joined us here today, Ravi Kaushik, who's the partner of Water Bridge Ventures, Namita Dalmiya. And of course, this shows the kind of work that Ravi has done in the VC space, Namita Dalmiya, who is the director investment for Omidyaar Network and also sort of manages the social impact of the entire investments, particularly in the education technology space that they are doing. We also have up next, Karan Mohla from Chirate Ventures. Sorry, Anidhav Damani first, who is the managing partner of Artha Venture Fund. And he invests in companies, particularly with follow-on rounds up to series A. It's a family office fund. And they keep on looking at newer investments. And education today is very interesting. And up next, we also have Karan Mohla. Can I have the next speaker on the screen, please? Who is the partner of Chirate Ventures? And formerly, it was called IDG. And some of, I think you have the most envious investments, Karan, in the education technology space today. And it's only likely to become bigger. And we will show all the best there. And do we, OK. So going forward, let's move ahead with the discussion. And one of the first areas, I think, that we would like to touch upon in this discussion is as to what, according to the panel, you feel the edict trends where investments are going to move and will emerge. Understandably, during this time, we have seen tutoring or life classes having sort of got a majority of funding. And anybody who was in the life training space, whether it was in K-12 space or whether it was upskilling or whether it was higher education, got majority of funding. But going forward, once we are in the post-pandemic zone, what kind of edtech sectors do you think are going to be very interesting for you to look at? So let me start with Ravi over here to understand what in edtech is now particularly going to be interesting from a VC perspective? No, thanks. Thanks, Ritu, first of all, for the opportunity. Very excited to be here. I think, look, obviously, edtech is such a vast segment. And if I have to name a couple, I think there are still some white spaces in state government exam. There are a very large number of candidates who give state government exams. There aren't enough edtech companies who go after that, there's a variety of reasons. So I think that that is one space, I think has quite a few white spaces there. And the second one is around the whole skilling space, skilling, accreditation of your post-degree. Haven't seen enough of those. There are some large companies there, yes. And I think a lot more can happen in that space. I would say these two sort of areas where there could be more opportunities. Not saying there aren't in the red and bottom of edtech which is K-12 and Tesla, but just sort of throwing it out. Sure, in fact, you know, today, earlier in the day when we were, the sessions were going on, this was one of the core discussions that assessment has particularly still lagging because getting any kind of assessment to be done online is still very, very tough. So yeah, you made a great point over there, state assessment. But I think right down to school assessment, it is still very hard for schools to get that going. Anirudh, your thoughts on this? Thank you, thank you very much for inviting me. And I'm glad to be on this panel. I think, you know, I echo what Ravi says. There are still some white spaces, but I also think that there has been also been some overfunding in certain areas. And I think, you know, this whole online education space, you know, once these schools open up again, whether it is six months, 12 months, there is going to be a new normal. However, I don't think all of these platforms that are trying to tutor online or trying to teach online will all survive. I think there'll be some, there'll be a huge shakeout and probably some consolidation over there. That being said, what's really been exciting me during this pandemic is these tech upskilling programs, a lot of these companies that are actually helping techies that either graduated from a technology institute or actually are at work, like Ravi was saying, and they're looking at upskilling them while they were at work. I think that's a very interesting space. I've seen some very interesting models over there where you don't have to pay unless you get a job or you get a higher pay, things like that. I think those are very interesting models. I would like to see something in the finance field because obviously coming from a finance space myself, I think that's definitely an area because there's a huge lagoon between what happens at the MBA school and what we as P, VC or investors running our funds would actually look for when it comes to financial modeling or research, that kind of stuff. So I think I've actually been very vocal. I've been looking for someone who's gonna reskill or upskill finance workers. I think that's a big space because there's a couple of really good companies already invested into it on the tech side. So I think that would be something very interesting. Sure, totally agree. Karan, I mean, coding has been a very interesting space that has emerged, coding education, that is particularly during the pandemic. And we've seen how sort of a marvelous journey by Tarjunian has done. In fact, Karan was speaking earlier at the forum. So, I mean, do you see such green shoots somewhere in the tech sector sort of coming up and becoming large in tech? I mean, coding is one example, but any others that come to your mind? Sure, I think it's actually a very interesting time to be talking about tech and must definitely be given to Navata and the Umeda team for supporting White Hat Uniform at a time where I think a lot of people didn't quite understand it. But I think what, if you kind of take a step back, overall what this last six months have kind of shown I think there will be some medium and long term fall out on that in a good way is that some of the behaviors will change more or less permanently. And, you know, Ravi touched upon one of them, which is if you look at government or state, central or state government or district level exams, I think they've always been there. They will be there. But I think the ability of people of who are taking those tests to actually move to more digital platforms have gone up because there's no choice. So I think that's clearly an opportunity which didn't exist before because it was very little in terms of a digital platform. Doing it was all offline. I think continuing education, continuous learning overall, it's not necessarily a sort of green shoot, but I think the awareness of people to try and continuously upscale, continuously learn A, because they have time but I think everybody realized they have to do that. So that's one of our mindset change as opposed to a new industry that started. And then lastly, you know, the whole, the one area of early learning or learning for children outside of school curriculum. So coding is a great example, but I think that kind of shows that there is a much larger and broader market out there which doesn't necessarily need to be restricted to India as white had been kind of shown very well. But I think that part of it, whether it's related to school curricular or whether it's extracurricular I think that's an interesting area. It's also maybe relatively speaking a little bit easier to start up because it's about aggregating supply which is there and somewhat fragmented. But I think how you build a sustainable business around that that would be interesting. So that's probably some of the areas that we see as being either, you know, green shoots emerging in new areas or things which kind of exist in the offline world coming online. Sure, and we're kind of looking forward to this. Namita, any thoughts you have on this? Particularly, you know, so one thing that one of our earlier speakers pointed out was the need for rural education to take a front seat and the Gram Panchayat becoming more empowered to sort of promote the whole idea of digital education. So from a social impact perspective, what is it that you think it can do more? Yeah, I think one of the earlier speakers mentioned that the education sector is so diverse, right? If you think about curricula, language, boards, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach. So first of all, there is an opportunity to build scalable and profitable businesses in education. And right now, we are scratching the surface in terms of reaching out to CBSE, ICSE, maybe some few couple of state boards kind of permeating, but there is equal opportunity in terms of building for state boards, et cetera. And I think they're not so much commenting on the role of Gram Panchayat. I think one of them will figure out interesting distribution model because we have to also understand the price point that these students will be able to pay much lower than today what we are charging. And hence, distribution will become key in terms of innovative mechanism where we can get either a Gram Panchayat or other influencers to evangelize and get distribution cost to. Besides what everyone else spoke about, I think there's one more area that I am particularly excited about from an investment perspective. And that is skilling or providing opportunities for students to learn while they are in college. I think one of my biggest pain points is students finish grade 12, 10th and 12th are like the most worrisome things and then they enter college the first and second year just goes back and nobody cares about what is happening. But in come third year, they start really panicking and saying, okay, what do I do? And from the third year till graduation plus two years, so many students or young people are in mess. Like we know the state of our country, employers are on the other hand saying these people are not employable. And I think they're talking about upskilling. I think that there is a dual option to actually enter much before, right? So whether it is by means of V2B or V2C directly, but really kind of first catching the attention of college students starting the pre-familiar and building something like tuition at price points, which are not necessarily the upskilling price points today, but lower price points which are attractive to college students. I think there is definitely a real opportunity there. I also agree that the early learning is the exposure to early learning. That will actually create opportunities not just for live learning. I don't think live learning is the only mechanism that will work there. That's where the multiple models will happen, whether it's recorded content, whether it's a marketplace model, right? Because people are not exposed to what is possible beyond the immediate neighborhood where they can send their children for some kind of holistic learning, not so much academy learning. So yeah, so I think it's a very, all in all, it's a very exciting time for what can come. So another thing that came out today is that it's expected one-third of the workforce is looking at being part of the gig economy, which means that practically, they might, and with national education policy in place and the pressures of boards become worse than now. Do you feel the concerns that you mentioned, Namita, would continue to remain the same? I mean, the gig workers who work on projects rather than organizations would continue to face these pressures of trying to compete for degrees or trying to compete for a certain level of grade or something. Actually, degrees is lack of degrees. Sorry to interrupt, but lack of degrees is not the problem. I think we are actually degree manufacturers. The lack of skills is the problem, right? So skilling is the issue. So when we need to kind of intervene and provide them the right skilling before they graduate so that they are ready for the workforce. Sure. I mean, so this is my question is to the entire panel here that do you really feel that, I mean, unacademy or maybe even a baiju with now them doing life classes? I mean, you know, Paytm became a Paytm bank at the end of the day. So do you feel these they're becoming edtech institutions, not really, they're not edtech startups anymore, becoming digital universities. They're becoming, you know, like, so their courses are actually accredited by CTE or by CBIC or IB board or whatever. And, you know, they become mainstream education rather than actually just being, you know, maybe just being like a facilitator or support system to the education. They become the main education. Do you see such trends also coming in? Anyone who would like to comment on it? Well, actually, Prashant, this side, this is true because digital is borderless and it is also, you know, the skill scale will also depend on what is a strategy, what is that you're offering. And this is quite fascinating to the startup community that how they will be able to grab that mind share and ultimately the market share. And hence we are seeing that there will be an emergence of very focused players. Because if you look at, there are generalistic tech players and there'll be specialist tech players. So the generalistic market will very soon, you know, flood and we will actually start getting crowded. But if you actually look at some very specific vocational skills and training, because post COVID what is likely to happen is also the way people look at their education, 10 plus, two plus, three plus, two is going to change quite a lot. And the decentralization of what we call as an extreme urbanization will also create a lot of opportunities. And hence the quest or a desire of a student to go to urban areas, to premium institutes will actually start fading. And vocational training when that starts getting in forefront what we call as, you know, the skilling. The skilling is it for employability only or skilling for entrepreneurship. And that will give a trigger to the next level of, you know, the market explosion in the tech space is what I feel. Sure. Thanks Prashant. Anybody from the panel who would like to also talk about it? Well, I think there are both models that need to exist, right? One is this full stack and really basically what is really happening with, you know, as you mentioned, and you know, companies are becoming a full stack and providing the, becoming the online learning company instead of an epic earlier in this search. But I think there is also equal need for modular services, right? Modular offerings, right? Not all students will want a full stack offering. Maybe they're getting something from somewhere, but they want modular offering also. And in fact, that unbundling is also important from a price point matching perspective, especially as you permeate the market, right? So, from a product market fit perspective also, I think both will need to coexist and maybe different companies do the different things, right? For example, Vedantu in our portfolio is a full stack offering versus a doubt nut can be more modular offering and you know, it's really kind of reaching the, the next half billion users in very different worlds. Sure, Anirudh Ravi. I'd like to add to what Namita said earlier, which is, you know, that India has essentially been a degree manufacturing country, right? I mean, and University of Phoenix, which is the online equivalent, maybe a Bayjus aside in the US more than two decades ago. So I think finally we have something like that over here because I think education institutes in most NASCom and all these guys have been complaining for many years that many of these institutes produce candidates that are not even fit for 90% of the jobs that they're applying for. So in that sense, having something like a Bayjus or having these platforms, quasi-digital universities coming out and actually creating programs that will create workers that can fill a specific need for specific organizations. And many of these, I think, because they won't have the management overhead of a particular university would probably reach out to industry and say, okay, what kind of candidates do you really want? And start preparing them right from the colleges itself. I think that's the need of the hour, right? Creating workers that eventually, as soon as they graduate can go in and fill in full-filler role right away. Versus, you know, what's been happening is just creating a standardized Bayjus kind of a worker and then expecting the organizations to sort of upskill them, re-skill them over time. I think that's what's going to eventually happen and you'll see more models like Bayjus working out. Sure. Anybody else who would like to comment on this? Yeah, just to add, I think if you get segment by segment, in the K-2L space, nobody's trying to replace the school. Everybody's trying to take the time before and after school. So tuition classes, the extracurricular classes, that's the model where every tech in K-12 is. Similarly, if you look at test threat, there the model is slightly different. They're saying, don't go to coaching classes, take coaching from me because I can teach you all of this and more at a much better way. So I think while they can become digital universities and why not, it really has to be seen in the context of which space are they operating in and hence what is the maximum value add that they can do. Because we have always maintained this that unless you are replacing an existing solution in edtech, could be an offline coaching institute, offline tuition, whatever, you are not going to be relevant. In edtech, you can't be a vitamin pill. You have to be the core food. Otherwise it's very difficult to make money, very difficult for people to pay. Agree. Karan, you wanna add to that? No, I actually think all the points I have been quite well covered. But I certainly agree. I think there will be a fairly acute verticalization across edtech, the same way we've seen in many other sectors that my digital starts becoming more and more relevant. So I think that's something which will be important in the next 10 plus years. So do you feel that in education there'll be more digital collaboration than a digital divide? That's a separate question altogether. I think, let me take that. No, I think there'll be a mix, right? It depends on what segment of the market you're kind of going after. Like we've seen with, like one would have seen with other sectors, there will be a certain base of consumers who will take to a digital or an edtech platform a lot easier. It doesn't necessarily need to be across socioeconomic classes. Actually, it may be more age-wise. People are more comfortable doing that. But I think there will be some elements of digital collaboration between the offline and the online world. I think the key thing will be, since we've been investing in edtech for the last seven, eight years, how any edtech platform can become the primary mode of whatever that user is wanting to do. Whether it's learning or it's upscaling, whether it's based on school or college curriculum. I think when that ship happens, like one has seen with many of the large companies there, that's when a lot of the openings become more mainstream. That's where you will see a digital divide. But ultimately, without the effect that an edtech platform or a learning platform can have digitally, we will continue to be a country where the penetration of real education is at a very surface level. So the comment about a country that manufactures degrees, I think you will see everybody taking certifications because they can put it up on LinkedIn. But how does that translate into something more meaningful? I think that's the part which we need to try and solve for, which is kind of happening in some of the other economies where people have kind of realized it. I think we're still at stage one or stage two. So I think that's my view on it, but it's something which is definitely here to stay. It's something which will play a much more relevant role in our lives. It doesn't matter if you're 40 or you're five. It has to play a much more meaningful role. So that's my view on sort of the collaboration versus the divide question. Sure, so any other thoughts on collaboration versus divide? Look, I think the collaboration's only increasing. If you take both Navita and our portfolio company 90% of the students are from tier two, three, and four. So the chance that it is without borders. So I think with Hetech and the proliferation of mobile devices with internet, I think the collaboration will only increase. A lot of material on Hetech is still available for free. There are premium models, premium models, variety of models exist depending on who you are, what you want to get. But I only think the collaboration will be good. I don't think the divide is increasing, that's my view. The schools are not going away, right? So schools are not only a place of learning. It serves many different purposes as parents. You would also know that, right? I think it also serves as a place for, as daycare, in a very crude sense, but also as a place where kids make sense, right? And similarly colleges are not going away because your learning also happens beyond academics. I think what's really happening is that, you know, what was completely offline has been challenged to go online, whether it's even in the after school tuition space, right? Like all the tuition, the models, which are essentially providing fast services to the tuition teachers or now to the schools, right? I think what will, I see this as a more collaboration that will happen. Of course, not everything that's working right now for the lockdown situation would continue to happen because schools are not going to do online classes once they open up, right? But teachers will adopt part of the things that are working for them and will continue to make sense to them. So I think we've been talking a lot about, you know, school of future and all of those things, but really it's more about within those boundaries, how do we rethink pedagogy and use technology to enable rather than replace what's happening, right? Yeah, I agree. So, you know, what is back to normal and the new normal of it take? So, you know, do you sort of envision everything remaining the same or becoming the same as in pre-pandemic where in schools were going to function the way they used to function, classrooms or do you see that there is going to be some hybrid mix of digital and physical classroom teaching? But I think more importantly, you know, one of the questions which come to my mind is and this starts from the first question that I asked you about areas that will emerge now in edtech. Do you see enterprise edtech becoming larger which is actually going to produce technologies for schools to be more enabled, classrooms to be more enabled. So that, you know, I mean, a kid is studying on the blackboard in a school and then he goes home and he studies in Baiju and he can tell in his head that there is a lot of difference between these two spaces and, you know, so, you know, eventually we want to empower the kid, not confuse him. So, I mean, you know, what is, so from my understanding, what is back to normal and what is new normal and how do they come together now? I think you'll end up, instead of bouncing back, I think we'll be bouncing forward, right? And what I see eventually happening is, you know, all these companies like Educomp and stuff back in the day, I think they were 10 years or 15 years ahead of the time. But now you've got a situation where what was supposed to happen five, seven, 10 years in our models is all happening today. And the teacher was always one of the, I think the central problem was always that, how do you upskill the teacher who doesn't know how to use technology, right? The children already know how to use it. My, you know, one year old nephew now knows how to operate an iPad, right? But if I ask one of my father to do the same thing, trust me, he would, you know, he's eyes become really wide all of a sudden, right? So I think the same issues that have been happening to teachers is that they look at this technology and they get freaked out by it, right? But because of the pandemic, because if they wanted to continue to have a living in the last six months, they've had to adopt. And in many ways they've been able to enhance their skills using technology. And now it's no longer, you know, for many teachers, it's no longer something unknown, right? It's something they've tried, it's something they've used and something they've gotten used to, right? And I think in the new normal or the bouncing forward that I'm talking about, you will see a hybrid. There will be, you know, you still have a classroom style teaching, but I think there'll be a lot more tech gadgets or tech, you know, platforms that teachers will now be, you know, open to and willing to use because now they've been exposed to it for six months, right? It takes 21 days to build a habit. You've been exposed to it for almost seven months now. And at least for the next four or five months, I don't see how schools are gonna open up a hundred percent until we've got a solution to COVID, right? So in that sense, you know, we've got enough time. We've got, you know, a forced change happening and it's gonna be a new, it's gonna be a bouncing forward, not a bouncing back. Sure. I think, you know, Anurad got at the point about what Educomp and all did. And I think the biggest problem was not necessarily the teachers, although that was certainly a problem, but also the ability of schools to adopt those skills. And I worked with Educomp in another many years back. So I know the problems they went through. And I think that's where the change will probably come bottom up. It will come from students adopting it, even teachers having to adopt it and teachers kind of pushing schools to do it. But ultimately large scale change cannot happen, at least in my view, in the near term, give even some of the structural issues we have around how schools are on, and, you know, the issue around having private schools and, you know, entering the state curriculum, et cetera. So I think there'll be some parts of it which will certainly have to see them because, you know, if other stakeholders like parents and teachers and students are demanding it, schools kind of have to listen to them. But there is this great, you know, there is rigidity to change. And that will not happen just because we don't go through a pandemic or once schools open up even in 2022. Hopefully this puts us on the course for change in the longer term. And that's certainly my very strong positive role. But I do think, going back to the other one, that it will create that change amongst teachers, like Anurad said, much more so than student-to-student kind of quality we're doing it. But hopefully it'll create the ability for educational institutes to adopt it, to adopt digital infrastructure, digital platforms and digital way of thinking. I think it's not about teaching, it's about how you think. You know, most of us do think that it was pre-pandemic or post-pandemic, that will take a little bit of time. But hopefully this is a good catalyst. And I can tell you, investors are looking at this space. You saw the funding that happened in the school, which is a full-stack model for schools. And we have also made an investment in starting as an enterprise solution to schools. We will be announcing it soon and which enterprise to learning solution, but more modular. So I think both full-stack and modular kind of works and one has to figure it out. So we're definitely looking at this space from the best perspective. This looks really interesting. Yeah, Ravi, please. No, just to add, I think everyone's right. I think I'm expecting digital schools going forward. Teachers have adopted schools are forced to adopt. Parents and students are already there. That's one. And second, I think for the first time, we as parents know what kids actually do, right? What kind of classes they take? How do they take? How do they answer questions? Kind of homework do they get? How do they study? Which means that the transparency between the school and the parent has dramatically increased. And they can't go back on that, right? Because of that transparency, teachers and schools will be forced to continue to give this transparency and more going forward, but automatically will lead to adoption of tech. What I'm still waiting to see is efficacy of pedagogy on the child, whether it's offline, whether it's online. I'm yet to see that. There's a lot of talk of AI, there's talk of ML, personalized learning journeys and all of that. But I'm yet to see all of that play out in the students, in children to see, are they thinking dramatically different with this versus that? And I'm hoping that we'll get some answers to all of these three things over the next four to five years. You know, you already mentioned teachers here and everybody has. So I mean, I think Anirudh was right that one of the reasons why schools have been lazy about adopting technology much earlier before pandemic was that, you know, schools as well as the teachers were still on the back foot when it came to adopting technology. But now that they have, now the teachers have been taking classes for more than six months today online. What bridges do you see the teachers crossing and the teachers as a community crossing? I mean, honestly, I can tell you some private schools are still very good, go down to government schools, go down to very small private schools. I mean, a teacher would feel that he's much better off or she's much better off being on a, or tutoring on a Baiju or a Vedantu or some other place. So what bridges do you see them crossing through this? And do you think for them, online teaching, having YouTube channels would become more lucrative than actually becoming a school teacher? And what disruption do you see happening there in the coming time? Sure, I'll take that. I think two to three things are happening. One is like you rightly said, if it's financially more remunerative to work from a tech company today, then the good teachers, the teachers who have the ability and the skills to teach online, communicate well, have those skills will move there. What is also happening is the teachers who are struggling to teach online will probably be asked to leave the profession because teachers have to adopt a lot of times technology. And if they don't, then it's going to be difficult for them to survive. So we're seeing both of these two things happen. The top clean, the people who want better financial returns rightfully. So adopt some of these tech platforms and the ones who are struggling to adopt tech will have to reskill them pretty rapidly. Those is going to be a tough way for them. But do you think schools becoming losers in this because they might lose their best talent to online or digital? I think they might lose some talent, sure. I think we cannot completely disregard that. But schools aren't going anywhere because like Namita rightly said, I think schools are a place for kids to not just learn academically but every other life skill possible. So they might lose some talent but I don't think they will suffer. So far, I mean, some of these online platforms have been running even before the pandemic and a lot of teachers, majority of teachers are the first time teachers. So these are not people who've been teaching. And if you think about it, a lot of these online tuition happened four to nine PM. So if the school's teachers were to change the profession a lot because of pandemic or they are finding these platforms more lucrative. I think these platforms are actually finding new talent. So I don't see this as an either-or. It's basically raising the workforce and maybe you will lose, right? And that's the part of competing any market, right? But I don't think schools will be losers, right? There will be a pressure on schools to recognize talent, which is a good thing overall because teachers have, teaching as a profession has not been, has, it's not teachers crave for recognition, they crave for career progression and all of these have been systemically missing from the school structure. So some of those things actually need to come in place. So if at all there will be a good pressure on the school system to do good on those things. So yeah, I mean, the bigger worry is really for the schools in this case as, you know, and that children are there practically from nine to three. So we're looking at some kind of disruption happening in that space. So another area that one has been seeing, and you know, you rightly said preschool and after school and tutoring being, coaching being one of the very big areas that is going to be impacted. So, you know, life teaching versus pre-recorded content. What are your thoughts on it? Do you think we are moving towards an era of more life teaching online, even when we're back to normal and open up as a society? Or do you feel that pre-recorded content is going to somehow lead the stack? Karan, you wanna take that? Yeah, again, I think it's entirely depending on use case. If you are, you know, looking at light learning or things which can be even sort of imparted through small groups, excuse me, it does not necessarily, it's have to be live work, right? But if it's concept based or practical adaptation of what you're learning, and certainly age group by, right? I think it's easier for slightly older, it's a young adults or adults to have a pre-recorded content and be able to assimilate from that. For younger children, having pre-recorded content does not necessarily work, even if it's light learning. So I think it squarely depends on what is being taught. I think what I have seen a lot of platforms do well is have a combination of both, where you have both live as well as pre-recorded, which allows you to also go back and check on concepts that one has been learning, because even in school, in a physical setting, you're not necessarily taking everything that's being taught. Even on one-on-one, if it's in a physical setting, sometimes you do have to go back and forth. So I'm not sure why that behavior would change is because you're on a digital platform. So I think the platforms which have, which deploy a combination, especially if it's beyond light or surface level, that's probably the right way to look at it. But I think it's about having the right tools to help people in an asynchronous environment. If you don't have the right tools, if that infrastructure is not in place, which it helps them like bandwidth, how to go back, how to be able to check on concepts on an asynchronous basis, then that environment also doesn't work. So I think those are things that some of the platforms take care of while they're building it. Any second thoughts on that? I think an element of this question also exists in the previous question. So how do you augment teacher incomes? And I think if I go back to the time when I was in school and at least most of my nieces and nephews today, most teachers not only taught in school, but they also gave tutoring. And there could be an element where you still have the teacher coming to school because that is required to keep up with the curriculum and things that are going on. But you also have them doing prerecorded classes or doing life classes. So the life classes could cost more and the prerecorded classes could cost less. And now the teacher can use technology to grow their reach almost exponentially. I mean, if you look at even the father of valuation, which is Ashwath Damodar. And he gives his NYU Stern classes for free. You can actually join the life class and do it for free. Why couldn't teachers do that? Like why couldn't schools do that? And today, they could then go to even a small village and compete with the government school by offering better content and better reach, right? And I think these kinds of things, again, this is all crystal-gazing, crystal ball-gazing at this point. But these are all possible. And it's all possible in the future, as Karan said, if the education ministry, if the government starts promoting and allowing these things to happen, I definitely see that this is a model that will evolve. And we'll obviously find multiple different variations of it. Sure. Another area that I would want to touch upon is upskilling, re-skilling, and the future of work. Certainly, everybody knows that the job market is now dwindled, particularly during the pandemic and re-skilling and being ready for the new economy, the digital economy is very important. So do you feel that EdTech and the job market tech somewhere needs to now get more collaborative and therefore the competition between universities and EdTech companies giving upskilling courses is going to become more intense in the coming times? I actually think there is also, this is exactly, this is similar to your question on collaboration versus divide, right? So there is actually also a lot more opportunity for collaboration, for upskilling companies which have been focusing on people already in the workforce to now go and collaborate with universities and start offering for what I was initially talking starting from pre-finery year to final year and some of these companies are already doing that, right? I will speak when they started this as soon as the pandemic hit and colleges were facing with all the challenges. But to your original question on the job, the linking the skilling and the job tech, I think it's an important one because I think the consumers are going to become smarter. It's not just about the access and the degree anymore, it's about the outcomes. And for the outcomes, you have to do skilling and placements both. And the more the collaboration can be, either the models are built for skilling and placement fully or there could be some kind of collaboration between the job tech and the skilling that could actually be more beneficial and you can create more value and capture more value as a result, right? And build successful businesses. So we specifically look for outcomes link skilling programs, whether it is upskilling or first-time skilling. So I do agree with you that there needs to be more integers. Sure, anybody who would like? No, I would agree. I think, yeah, just to add, I think it's a little bit more nuanced, right? For instance, if you are trying to upskill an existing college student, I don't think he's interested in upskilling. He's interested in a job. Most kids in India go to college, get a degree and a job, right? So while the positioning to him is upskilling, he's interested in, can this get me a job, right? So which means that if you're doing it at college, student level, it has to be at a lower price point and I need conversion. The second nuance to this is, we have obviously seen schools that cover income share agreements, et cetera. While theoretically, I think it sounds good. I think there is a massive change in behavior that's required because in India, if someone said that you had to give me a part of your salary, the longest of time, they will balk at it. It's the same thing as a loan, but the perception is very different, right? He's like, was I deserve this job? I'm not gonna give you a share of my income. So there is consumer behavior change that's also required. So I think it's a very massive opportunity, but it has to be played very sharply, very smartly, depending on the segment that you're going after. Because each segment, whether you are minus one pre-graduation or one to five, five to 10, the perception, the value of work is very different. Sure. And I mean, finally any thoughts on the national education policy? I mean, you know, how do you think that is going to be a big kick starter for the digital world? I mean, you know, if I were to look at how government is thinking they are entirely happy with having digital schools and digital universities going forward, I mean, which is a good thing because obviously they're looking more from a penetration and access perspective. So it completely works over there. But I think the middle road that you said where a good teacher can actually sort of also teach the pre-recorded sessions to government schools or anybody else is far more favorable. So I mean, what is your thoughts on the national education policy and the outcome of it, maybe five years down the line? I think they did that up the first step. I think there's a lot of very useful propositions in national education policy, right? It is full of great ideas. Of course, the implementation of it will be a challenge. And they've put out a 15-year roadmap, right? It's not like it has to happen all tomorrow. But I think some of the things that they've called out are going to ask for quality and hence collaboration, right? And what I mean by that, like, for example, they are talking about assessment reform completely. Assessment is not going to be routine in any case, right? I know CGS is already thinking about the whole example reform. So once that starts to happen, even starting from grade five, the teachers have to start teaching differently. It's not only about grade 10, grade 12 anymore. And then there's an inclusion of all digital skills, life skills. So this will require overall of curriculum, inclusion, including your curriculum, and especially the early, even starting the early childhood, even though private schools offer already nursery KG, but there is going to be a lot more focus on play-based learning, et cetera. Similarly, in higher education, right now they're talking a lot more about access, which is to increase the growth and development ratio. Hopefully we'll not make the mistake that we've made in the past of just increasing the access and not focusing on quality at all. And hopefully the consumers will also come out and really say that, you know, this needs to be more outcome-oriented. So there's going to be both, because the schools will need to move, but also consumers will start demanding better education in higher education. So I'm very hopeful that the policy implemented well will lead to more collaboration and more opportunities. Sure. So the marriage between quality and access needs to somewhere be created. Yeah. Sure. Anybody else who wants to comment on the national education policy and its outcomes? No, I think Navita sort of encapsulated really well. I think it's hard to find work with the intent, you know, and the ideas that are prescribed. It will really require a overhaul on all fronts, both on the instructor side, on the institute side, on how parents and children sort of view the entire education cycle. I think it's not sure if it'll have a lot of deep impact in a five-year period, as it comes out with it. I think it's certainly a 15, 20, because these are generational changes, which take, you know, a long time. But I think ultimately if things work well, the best out of the market hope is a genuinely skilled population that can take advantage of several opportunities that'll exist into the 2030s and 40s that will, you know, our world 20 years from now, you know. So if you want to have a population that can take care of that and not have a demographic dividend, which comes and actually becomes a liability like it's seemingly is right now. So I think that's the big consideration to really attest. Totally. So there's a question that has come on from our even platform, which says that, and it's directed to Namita, you spoke about the need for education for first year and second year students. What exactly are the opportunities you're referring to? Yeah, I think from both teaching technical skills and employability skills, there is a need. So I think you can graduate as a computer science engineer, but you really do not know how to code and there's a lot of report and data already out there. So even if you teach, so there is, so even just the technical skilling from that perspective, the stream in which students are learning and I don't mean only coding. It could be other engineering subjects or other, even accounting commerce. So the technical skills need to be sharpened and the other is really the employability skills which could be quote-unquote soft skills. So there's an opportunity in terms of skilling and getting them to fight for workforce. Another question is, do you see ed tech startups getting challenged because of offline once the school starts, I mean, they might have their enrollment might go down. I think it depends on where in the ed tech space are you operating. I mean, I think I'm referring to like you drink glasses or I mean, to the likes of even, I think it's only going to go up because once people have seen the value of technology, used it, experienced it, the value of all the tools that come with it. It's very, people don't go back. We've seen that with e-commerce, they've seen with multiple other sectors. I think it's actually going to continue to go up. Okay. So that was an interesting discussion. Any parting thoughts that you have on ed tech and where you see it going in the coming time. So maybe particularly once we open up December 2020, what does it look like for the ed tech sector? Ravi, let's say, oh no, go on Namedan. No, I'll just say, I'm just seeing such influx of high quality talent in the ed tech space, the entrepreneurs, right? So that, you know, ultimately that, those are the rock stars, right? And, you know, that makes me one more hopeful about the sector. Shirley? Yeah. No, I think it's an incredibly exciting times. A lot of opportunities, lots of overfunding. I think in the short term, you'll expect a lot of funding to go to what I call as a big three of ed tech in India. And they will attract tons of capital. Over a period of time, the cycle will weigh off, the euphoria will wear off. There will be some day in some sectors where overfunding has happened. But I think overall the opportunities are massive, massive segment, massive pools of capital, massive profit pools, 80% gross margins for the few sectors which can give you that. So I think the promise is great. Absolutely. Do you see some MND activity increasing once things open up in the ed tech space? I think so. It's already happening and I think it will continue to happen, definitely. Aniruddh? Here's a country, we spent almost 3% of our GDP, public expenditure is almost 3% of GDP plus, I think every middle class, in fact, not just middle class, but every class of family in India. Here marks a large chunk of their savings towards the child's education. So as far as money is concerned, this is the largest pool of money we can even think about that is getting spent on an annual basis. But again, I do, and I think everyone's sort of referenced this, is that let's not get overexcited, right? There is still a lot of work to be done. The NEP policy is, you know, lays out things to 2040, which means there is five national elections, minimum that need to happen. By the time this policy company rolls itself out. So, you know, entrepreneurs should be cognizant, you know, they should be nimble and just not get caught up with the massive numbers. You need to really have, you know, it's much more important to figure out which part of the river you skater to versus the entire size of the river. Karan, do you see a quota getting wiped off because of the pandemic and headache? No, no, I look, I think longer term, because of the size of the opportunity, because of the ongoing spend. I think the spends on education and learning will just go up. Because as, you know, the each generation will subsequently spend more on, will want to spend more on their children as well as a little bit on themselves. It wasn't the case 30, 40 years back, right? I think the only takeaway really is, you know, there is obviously a lot of interest from investors and founders. There are several areas with the net tech where you can build good sustainable businesses. You don't need to necessarily go for, you know, outrageous growth rates. Growth rates will come as the market evolves and we've seen this in every market or every segment of the market that got digitized. I hope you will all learn our lessons from that. But I think ultimately, yes, it's certainly on the largest set of, large data where the steps of outcomes can be multiple, will probably be multiple, you've seen three or four companies already. And, you know, that inflection point has probably already happened and there will be another inflection point probably five, six years from now. Sure, thank you very much to the entire panel. I think some great, great inputs out there. And, you know, I'm absolutely excited and looking forward to what is going to happen in the education space in the coming times. I've never seen so much vibrancy in this sector ever. I mean, we've been doing events on education the longest time, but I think the times that I've seen in 2020 for this sector is unparalleled. So thank you for coming and sharing what and giving us sort of a future crystal gaze as to what the sector looks like in the coming times. And I'm glad to hear that, you know, the idea is not to disrupt education, educational institutions, but to work closely and see that there is going to be a bigger, the empowerment of the child who is looking to take quality education.