Begin with a clean slate: This start-up by NIT Rourkela students can help you pick the right career

Started by two students from National Institute of Technology Rourkela, Slate is a start-up that is going to officially launch their operations soon. They want to help students with picking careers 
Luv Krishna during a pitching session | (Pic: Slate)
Luv Krishna during a pitching session | (Pic: Slate)

If only students could 'try' various interests before actually choosing one as their career. Who knows? Maybe then fewer professionals would have a change of heart that would cause them to switch careers. This is the reason why Vatsal Bhatt and Luv Krishna started Slate last year in December.

The idea is this, Slate has 20 segments like teaching, web development, app development and so on. Those students who sign up with them, they select one or more of these segments, and assignments are given to them accordingly. These assignments come from Slate's partners including corporates, start-ups and so on. As the students work on the assignments for 40 days, they get a mini crash course on how a job in that particular sector would look like and this knowledge might aid them in picking the right career path. "Our intention is that they try, that's all. When you try, you will find out if you really want to go down that particular path," encourages Vatsal.

The team that's behind the app | (Pic: Slate)

Currently a second year student at NIT, Rourkela, Vatsal and his co-founder have big plans for Slate. As of now, they have initiated a trial run, for which, 250 students have signed up for teaching and about 100 of them have been designated as home tutors. "Since all the students are from a reputed institution like NIT Rourkela, it was not very tough for them to take up short-term teaching assignments," explains the 19-year-old. When it comes to teaching jobs, all those who sign up are divided into three categories, those who are polished and mature enough to not really need any assistance, those who need a gentle push and those, who with the right mentors, have the ability to shine. Thus, they offer mentorship too. "In every segment, students are divided thus and in segments like graphic design, the work of all interns is presented to the company and it is up to the company to select the work that best suits their brief," explains Vatsal, who was born and brought up in Nainital, Uttarakhand. About 10 students are currently working on graphic designing assignments for two start-ups.      

On their content team are Partha Pratim Sahu and Sudeshna Pal; on their tech team are Amlana Pattnayak, Sudhanshu Sekhar Swain and Sriman Smarak Das and the mentors who help them out are Manohar and Ashu Patel


The youngster admits that it wasn't easy for start-up to trust them, "A meeting with them set for 40 minutes takes up to three hours of convincing," he explains. But alumni of NIT Rourkela helped them out and so did the contacts of Vatsal, who had a start-up in the realm of travel. It is because of the latter that companies like Hills2home that connects Uttarakhand with markets around the world, were able to come on board. And it is because they have reputed companies that students from IIT Bhubaneswar also have shown interest in Slate. "The whole point is that we want to eradicate the mindset that engineers are clueless and don't know what to do. That perception should change," he says with a firm determination.

During a pitching session | (Pic: Slate)

What the future holds for them:
- They plan to add five new segments
- Three apps are being worked on, one especially to teach students who sign up to teach
- Plan is to launch officially very soon  

For more on them, check out bit.ly/37gdJuH

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