Future of jobs for kids ‘sorted’ with this app

I was once addressing a group of third year computer science batch in one of the most reputed colleges in Bengaluru.
Students at a session
Students at a session

CHENNAI: I was once addressing a group of third year computer science batch in one of the most reputed colleges in Bengaluru. And during the session I asked how many of them really wanted to become engineers, and believe me out of a class of 108, only six hands were up,” recalls Mala Mary Martina, CEO and founder, I Love Mondays, an EdTech Company that helps teens identify careers they love.  

Mala, an engineer herself, was awarded the best engineer in Karnataka in 2009 but shifted from that because she knew that wasn’t her calling. Realising the need to address the issue of how many people today are working jobs they don’t like, and many are still confused about what to pursue, she wrote a book I Love Mondays. “In 2014 I was interviewing people who took the road less travelled and wanted to find out how they made it big. That’s when I realised that I didn’t just want to be a talker, I wanted to be a doer,” she says.

The Bengaluru-based education start-up has recently moved to Chennai and today operates across the five states in the south. After having started off as a group working with teenagers, by going to schools and institutes, now I Love Mondays has come up with an app called ‘Sorted’ that helps any child anywhere in India with access to career guidance at any time. The users don’t necessarily have to be associated with any school per se, and is free to use the app according to their convenience.

“Through our app, we have created a virtual reality of-sorts and we are trying to give experiences from the field so that children get an idea of what they are going to get into,” Mala points out. The group has also been actively conducting workshops and sessions of different kinds — workshop for both parents and children on the future of jobs. “There are a lot of jobs today that might not even exist in the future, so we are enlightening them. We talk about the kind of skills and attitude they would need to develop these kind of jobs, because they are very different — we call them as ‘Yellow collar jobs.”

There is also a career coaching for the kids, done in the presence of the parents and finally an explorer project which encourages them to explore careers. “If you ask many kids in schools today about the different course or careers they known of, they can hardly name five. So we bring in experts to the school and make kids get hands-on experience of it; it helps them understand better.”

Jayanthi Shivakumar, whose daughter Shreya had attended a session with I Love Mondays, says, “My daughter is a bright student in school but wanted to pursue something artistic. But I was under a lot of pressure because people kept thinking she should take up something mainstream too,” she avers. But after attending a career guidance session with Mala and then an internship in the field of designing, her daughter got a clear idea of what she wanted to pursue and is happy in the field she chose today.
Similarly Ilena Moitra who had attended a training session with I Love Mondays while in school says that training gave her an insight into little details and their importance. “We had several sessions — body language, speaking, presenting ourselves and so on. From the time I was little, I knew I did not want to do a 9-5 job. After attending these sessions with them, it opened up my mind to a lot of options as well,” she says.

For details visit:www.ilovemondays.com

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