Parikshit Jain quit his job at McKinsey in 2006 to start Vienova Technology to deliver world-class education services using a proprietary web-enabled platform that enables multiple communication channels like audio, video, text and whiteboard. Students benefit from this interactive technology, as the classes are structured based on their pace, and the teachers can focus on ensuring that they learn in a fun manner. The team is hard at work, trying to find a solution to the problem of unaffordable education, and offers end-to-end services of setting up and operating schools that are committed to affordable education. Vienova Education has received the highest rating in the Global Impact Investing Ratings System (GIIRS) survey across 23 countries for the last two years consecutively.
Jain has always wanted to give back to society in a significant manner, right from his college days. He explains, “Thirty kilometres outside any major city, the world is completely different. It sometimes looks like we are a century behind in those areas. Education is one of the most pressing needs of billions of people. Affordable education is the fulcrum of most societal issues but has unfortunately remained an elusive goal for hundreds of years. I think the team has done a fantastic job and we are now confident that there will be a paradigm shift in the learning processes that offer knowledge along with excitement, ethics and skills, with jobs as a natural outcome.”
Innovation is at the heart of the business, as they attempt to solve deep-rooted problems in education. Vienova has implemented close to 50 innovations in the last 12 months alone. Their online tutoring features facilitate one-to-one personalised attention for the learner, with a real time two-way interactive whiteboard and digital pen. Sessions are taken by highly experienced tutors. They have also assembled a team of IT developers, subject matter experts, graphic visualisers and authors to develop activity-based lesson plans, interactive multimedia content and interactive games that enhance the understanding of concepts.
Jain studied at the Delhi Public School, Mathura Road, and then at IIT-Delhi, before going to IIM-Ahmedabad for his MBA. He played sports like badminton, hockey and chess, which helped him mature as an individual and a team player, making him innovative, tenacious and a go-getter. Jain is a recipient of the IIT-Delhi Academic Silver Medal, IIT Department All Rounder Award and the IIM-Ahmedabad Academic Excellence Award. He likes to travel and it helps that his company has operations across the country.
Jain’s mantra is to leverage technology extensively to address business needs, with a never-say-die attitude. To keep going in the most difficult times, he has a number of mentors that include the likes of Raman Roy (father of the IT-BPO industry and currently CEO of Quattro), Saurabh Srivastava (Chairman, Indian Venture Capital Association) and Arvind Singhal (Chairman and MD of Technopak, the guru of the retail industry).
Rohit@learnbizsimulations.com