Education in India is often far removed from the real world and students and employers do not have a forum for meaningful interaction to bridge this gap. Bengaluru-based startup Xcelerator is bridging this gap by bringing together academia and industry to nurture real-world experience and help students get industry exposure.
The company connects students to mentors and projects that help them build an exceptional portfolio that companies will be impressed by, "We, at Xcelerator, have created a collaborative learning community, which brings stakeholders together to create an experiential and contextual learning platform. The purpose of these project-based engagements is to ensure that the learning is relevant to the nature of work that goes on in the industry and to help students get closer to the real needs of the industry," said Annirudha Kannal, CEO, Xcelerator.
This way students can also get a head-start on what kind of companies may be interested in them, "The most frequent question asked is whether our education is relevant today. Relevance is not only a problem of content, it is also a problem of method. The real gap is not of industry content but the gap exists in teaching and learning. For instance, earlier students used to learn from textbooks, go to the library sit for hours and refer to different books. But now the way has changed. Nowadays students learn from the internet, sit in cafes, have discussions and so on. The way a student learns has changed but sadly the way a teacher teaches has not changed. We are trying to solve the irrelevance that comes with the methodology," he adds.
Xcelerator curates content which is used by colleges and institutions across the country and is embedded into their core curriculum. This method is primarily focused on connectivism which is a way of learning in this digital age. "Our vision is to make learning into a habit for everyone. Like our tagline says, we want to transform higher education in India. We want to liberate learning from classrooms, timetables, and exams. We want to make the teaching-learning process a lot of more exciting and engaging leading to better learning outcomes. We want to empower professors to teach better, and students to learn more," he concludes.
Over and above working with colleges transform their curriculum, Xcelerator also actively works with helping students with the nitty-gritty of being job-ready. This includes testimonials, prep for interviews and getting a killer portfolio together, "We start by asking a student what their aspirational job role is or are if they have multiple. We are going beyond a unidimensional way of assessing a student as we are gathering a lot more data which is actually required by the company," he stated and added, "This is what companies are looking for too."
So how does it work for institutes? The institutes have to register and create an account on Xcelerator's portal. They are then required to provide the list of recruiters that visit the campus for placements. Xcelerator's recommendation engine will help the college students build a portfolio to match their prospective employer’s needs. "Our platform helps institutions streamline and manage their placement process. They can share the ePortfolios of students with the companies that come in for placements. They can also use our analytics tools to shortlist prospective candidates and share them with companies," explained the 37-year-old.
