The educational industry today is observing a change in its dynamics due to the sudden outbreak of the novel Coronavirus. As this disease has put constraints in the modes of studying like group study or classroom study, the education sector has been diverted to adopt digital platforms to enable learning for students.

Various innovative learning modules and processes are implemented to facilitate a hassle-free learning experience for students. Not only students but teachers are also adapting to the digital transformation that the industry is going through. This crisis has paved the way for a teaching mechanism that is going to shape the future.

Rachit Agrawal, Co-founder of AdmitKard is similarly helping students through a digital platform that takes all the hassle of physical admission process away. AdmitKard provides students with the necessary aid for applying to a course or an institute overseas. Let’s get an idea of how Mr. Agrawal is creating solutions for students who wish to go abroad for studies through this interview given below:

Kindly brief us about the graph of your career as an educationist. Also, tell us about your entrepreneurial journey.

I am a graduate of IIIT Allahabad & IIM Calcutta, with a good stint with top companies like Adobe and BCG. After my successful exit from my previous Start-up LifePad, my Co-founder, Piyush & I, we both saw a huge potential in the Ed-Tech arena, back in 2017.

Many teams were solving the problem of K-12, TestPrep, Certification etc., but in our market research we realized a big gap in college admissions as the process was broken. It was a problem for both Indian colleges and International admissions, it was even more. Millions of students travel abroad every year globally but they lacked the right, updated & unbiased guidance which we believe can be delivered with the help of technology and students who are currently studying in those universities. Hence, we started AdmitKard to bridge that gap and improve students’ experience.

Pertaining to your rich industry experience, how according to you has the need for international education and skilled labour increased over time?

As per the Ministry of External Affairs the number of Indian students studying abroad in 2013 was 1.8 lakhs which grew to 5.5 lakhs by 2017 and 10.9 lakhs by 2020. Also destination countries where students are going increased from 18 to 43. In the same time-frame such fast growth has been witnessed by only a few traditional verticals. A lot of these countries are facing the problem of the aging population and India, being a country with an average age of 26 becomes a great source of both students and skilled labour.

The demand for International education & skilled labour has always been there and will always be. What restricted people from pursuing the same is the lack of correct knowledge. With the advent of the Internet, people are now more aware of their options. This has also led to people getting more knowledge about opportunities and scholarships. The ease of getting financial assistance has also contributed big time to this scenario.

Please tell our readers more about AdmitKard and its range of services.

AdmitKard is a Socio-Tech platform which helps students in their end to end journey from Admission to Migration. We intend to build a platform through which a student of any country can migrate to any other country. It is a socially active platform by the students, for the students.

The entire student admission process that takes place offline has been mapped on a single online portal and hence students can take entire control of their process. We believe every student is unique and hence every student gets their personalized plan generated by the platform itself.

Also current international students guide future aspirants on AdmitKard as they feel they were misguided when they were applying to study abroad. So a student coming on the AdmitKard platform can avail all services ranging from Information Research to Applications, Visa to Education Loan, and Accommodations to Insurance, etc.

What challenges have you faced throughout the course of setting up AdmitKard?

Building a start-up is not easy. Also, when you’re trying to disrupt how an industry works or try to change customer behavior, it’s even harder. Being someone new to this industry it took us time to understand the customer pain points and industry constraints.

The biggest challenge that we’ve faced in the past has been product adoption. The challenge affected us not only externally but internally as well. When the entire Industry asks you to come and meet physically, we ask people not to meet us physically but digitally. Trying to amend the thought process of students, parents and even our team members has been a good challenge but now we have overcome that.

What is your opinion on the effect of globalization on the education sector?

Globalization has radically transformed the world in every aspect. It is evident across all sectors – Manufacturing, Services, IT, etc., and hence to do business better, there has been a massive demand for multi-cultural team members. Education has served as a backbone to the demand of all such sectors and it continues to serve. In my view the development of multicultural awareness from an early age may integrate ideologies sourced from various societies to arrive at well-balanced conclusions regarding issues that surround the world as a whole.

Considering the current employment scenario impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, according to you, which educational discipline or industry could open the most opportunities for the future workforce?

Well, Covid-19 has forced every one of us to change the way we think or behave. Most of us including our parents and grandparents have moved online and have started using platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom etc. With more time being spent online we are witnessing many more verticals coming up like Content Creation (YouTube and TikTok), and Digital marketing, etc.

The digital economy will continue to flourish and all the traditional businesses will find a way to integrate it and hence studying STEM (Science, Technology, and Engineering with Mathematics) would remain evergreen for students.

In EdTech we are witnessing students, colleges, teachers moving online and hence a strong wave of online education is being seen. It is similar to what demonetization did to the digital payments sector. Even after the demonetization ended, the average number of people using digital payments shot up multiple times as compared to previously observed transactions. The same scenario will happen for Ed-Tech & digital content creators after COVID19 is over.

What would be your advice to those who wish to venture into the educational consultation business?

Build knowledge & keep customers success as a metric would be my advice to young people planning to venture into educational consultation. There are short-cuts but the key would always be doing 1 thing better than everybody else in the industry.

What have you envisioned for yourself with respect to career growth?

Building AdmitKard as a global platform helping students migrate from one country to any country. This one line summarizes how I envision myself and my start-up to grow in the coming years.