The evolving skill development ecosystem has many stakeholders performing several roles. The effectiveness of the initiatives will depend on the ease of connection between them to establish transparency of processes and outcomes. eKaushal is the first cloud based skill ecosystem management platform, designed to facilitate meaningful engagement of the stakeholders with the larger system. Let’s know more about the platform in this Skill Talk by Shivaam Sharma, Founder and CEO, Trans Neuron Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Q: eKaushal is an interesting concept where different stakeholders in the skills space come together on a single platform. Can you explain how exactly this works and its benefits for the evolving skills ecosystem?
A: eKaushal is its B2B Skill Ecosystem Management Product from Trans Neuron Technologies. It is designed to address issues in stakeholder engagement in the skills ecosystem.through latest technologies. There are many issues holding the reach, expansion and desired output from skilling today. This includes transparency, analytics, meaningful use of Artificial Intelligence, connect between employer and training center, funding organization’s (Government, CSR, NGOs) inability to track their fund utilization and their ecosystems, standardization of reports to analyze etc.
Where some stakeholders are still maintaining data on paper, some are on excel and very few using MIS applications developed in-house or by a local vendor to carry on day to day operations.
To explain it better, let’s look at the example of a funding agency like the government, which is running multiple Skilling Schemes, it needs a platform to connect all the stakeholders in its ecosystem like Training Partners, Assessment & Certification Agencies, Employers for apprenticeship/ internship and Jobs plus many more. Further, each stakeholder needs a platform connect to their sub ecosystem like a Training Partner to a Scheme needs a platform to connect to Training Centers, Trainers, Youth Mobilization etc.
eKaushal is the first cloud based skill ecosystem management platform in the world to connect the ecosystem of each stakeholder and to connect to the larger ecosystem. eKaushal as a platform was launched less than 3 years back and at present it is powering the skills ecosystem of multiple state governments and the biggest skills ecosystem for Government of India under Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE).
Q: How have you been able to bridge the gap between education, skills and employment by using technology platform like eKaushal?
A: eKaushal was first used by APSSDC (Andhra Pradesh Government) to connect its skills ecosystem and help the youth connect with the Employers and in less than 1 year it helped more than 30,000 Youth to get skilled under various Skilling Centers, supporting the mobilization (Job Mela etc), Assessment and finally to help the youth get the Jobs.
eKaushal became the platform of choice for launching Yuva Yuga (by Government of Karnataka) which not only connected the skills escosystem in the state under Ministry of IT but went one step ahead in helping the Youth through the first ever AI based Cognitive Counsellor “eMargadarshi” under the leadership of Ex Minister of IT & BT Shri Priyank Kharge. The platform in last 1 year has helped more than 35,000 Youth in the state of Karnataka.
eKaushal is now powering the largest skills ecosystem in India, Skill India Portal under Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, the platform expects to support multiple schemes, connect each state and their ecosystems and support more than 150 million Youth and 100,000 plus Training Centers.
Q: What is ‘The Cognitive Counselor’ and how does it help the students?
A: To Skill Youth, there is a huge need to guide them properly based on their interest and capabilities by taking them through an Assessment and knowing their interest areas. For this there is a need of creating an army of Counsellors and then to certify these Counselor which in itself is a herculean task and then the visibility of these counsellors at the time of need… or when a Youth needs guidance is another big challenge. To overcome this Challenge, eKaushal launched AI based Cognitive Counsellor which can guide the Youth on various free, subsidized and paid training program under multiple Schemes launched by funding agencies like Government or CSR or NGOs and then suggest the best training center, plus the job description and expected salaries and companies looking to hire this youth after the training.
Cognitive Counsellor is used by Yuva Yuga Program under Government of Karnataka and has helped few thousand students since its launch few months back.
Q: How are you promoting entrepreneurship through your platform?
A: eKaushal has a powerful Learning Engine which is used by Training Centers to upload Digital Content, Conduct Simulated Labs, Assessments, Virtual Classes and offers loan facility through 3rd Party NBFCs to deserving students.
In Phase 1, eKaushal has launched Tech Entrepreneurship in association with Global Cloud Giants to help students in IT & ITeS to start their Tech Startups with best and sophisticated Software Environment and Mentorship including connect with VCs and Angels.
Q: You are based out of Bangalore as of now do you plan to expand to other cities and what are your future goals?
A: We already have offices in Bangalore, NCR (Gurgaon) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and soon starting in Singapore. Trans Neuron has clients in 12 states, 3 Countries and plans to expand to 10 Countries by end of next year.
Q: Who are the assessment agencies you work with and how do they assess the performance of the students?
A: At present we are working with 2 large Indian Assessment Companies in India and 1 from US.
Q: Any other points, observations in the area of using digital technologies to positively impact the vocational and skills space in India.
A: Digital Technologies will immensely impact the skilling in coming years, specially with
- eLearning through the use of AR/ VR
- eLabs (Practice Sessions)
- eAssessments
- Cognitive Counsellor etc. on the candidate end and
- AI for searching the right candidate and creating the Learning Path for 2nd Level of candidates
- Funding Agencies will use AI and Predictive Analytics to plan geography wise skilling and a lot more
