February 2019.
I left my job as a CMO for a tech company in Gurgaon and took a sabbatical. This one lasted for the last 18 months. I took this break to figure out what can I do to keep my self engaged and to create long term impact in the society around us.
I have been actively involved with the MBA student community. My first full time experience as an Adjunct Professor was with IIPM in 2004, in their Bengaluru campus where I taught two subjects (Digital Marketing and CRM) for the entire semester to a group of 210 MBA students. I found engaging the class and imparting the learning easier. What was difficult was assessing the answer sheets of these 210 learners when they had written their exams after the semester end. How I ended up reviewing and evaluating their answer sheets is another interesting story.
Over the years, I have been invited to be a guest speaker with visits to over 40 campuses in India (including ISB Hyderabad, IIT, IIMs etc.) and I have enjoyed my interaction with fresher MBAs. What has stood out for me is the level of talent available in India trying to make the most of their academic pursuit.
Where I saw a big gap was the employability of the subjects learnt in the full 2 year MBA programs. The MBA program curriculum is meant to be rewritten to better bit 1) the demands of the industry & the nation and 2) different learning styles of each of the student.
My quest to try something different (to make MBAs more employable by making them industry ready) led to research and discussions with universities and industry experts.
In one such discussion, I was invited by a leading university in NCR to be an adjunct professor starting July 2020 and then corona crisis happened.
Covid kicked me.
It got me thinking. Education in India has been hugely disrupted (and positively) by the Covid crisis. For quite a few years, we have talked about the role of technology (LMS etc.) and how blended or hybrid learning models (offline and online, self driven and classroom led etc.) are need of the hour. Corona has forced our educational institutions to take this up as a challenge and what we have achieved in India in terms of educational technology and remote learning in 4 months would be achieved perhaps in 10-15 years in a normal run.
We have the zoom phenomenon in front of us. Is it possible to lead a group of students through an education cycle based purely on integrative learning? Can we really impart life skills in a non-classroom mode?
Jai Shri Ram. August 05, 2020.
An Auspicious start. New thinking.
And that led to the idea of creating a community of MBA students who are comfortable with the use of technology (live video classrooms) and are driven to make the most of their MBA experience (and investments).
MBAspark is my first baby step in this direction.
Punit Modhgil
You can read more about my professional experience and background at http://www.linkedin.com/in/punitm