Learners Lab - Learning by building

The Problem

India is a country with high working age (15–59 years) population.

In India around 12 million youth enter the workforce every year, with poor education and negligible work skills, if they are unemployed due to lack of skills, massive social unrest could ensue.

More than 12 million youth are expected to enter India’s labor force every year for the next two decades. The government’s recent skill gap analysis concludes that in India, more than 700 million Indians are estimated to be of working age by 2022. Out of these, more than 600 million require some kind of vocational or skill development training.

The plans to transform the Indian economy are highly dependent on the availability of jobs and the quality of labor force

Projected Employment for IT & ITES is 5.3 million(source: Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Govt. of India (2017)

The Questions we ask

1. How do we increase the quality of our labor force?
2. How can we give “students” access to develop the future-ready skills that will empower them to make positive decisions for themselves in the future?
3. How can we make them independent decision-makers?
4. How can we make them Creative Problem Solvers?
5. How can we create a mindset of Experimentation?
6. How can we build their skills for Innovation, Problem Solving, digital Entrepreneurship, Full-stack Engineers?
7. How can we bring them community leadership skills?

The Solution

The solution is to put together real market experiences with learners to map skills and let them choose their own path towards the desired future.

Businesses/ Schools/learning communities/individuals join a lab (virtual and or hybrid) where market ideas are tested. 

Learners try by doing the skills they have or lack and decide freely on the paths they want to pursue for their future. 

This lab includes a support net made by buddies, mentors, and alumni.

India has a large number of educated unemployed, while the industry is short of skilled professionals. HR manager face challenge of selecting candidate for the job with right set of skills. Being qualified for the job is one thing while being skilled for the job is another thing.

1.Skill deficit-In India the capacity of skill
development is around 3.1 million while 12.8
million youth are added to the Indian workforce. 

2. Perfect match-There is no shortage of job. The
shortage is only of getting the right skills for a particular
job. 

3. Internship-Students have theoretical knowledge
but they have don't any practical knowledge that becomes
hurdle for them to get job. Internship provides
hands-on work opportunities and helps them to apply
their theoretical knowledge to real life situation. 

4. Low match with industry needs

Source: International Journal of Scientific Research and Engineering Development-– Volume 3 Issue 6, Nov-Dec 2020 

Urban & Rural Youth between the age of 15- 35 needs to be exposed to real-world learning by having problem statements given by the industry. 

We need to create the future by increasing the quality of youth and its skills. Youth who are able to think on their own and have skills such as creativity, Critical thinking, problem-solving, experimenting, Systems Thinking, Innovation, Digital Future Skills, Decision Making which enable them to not be just employable but also enable them to be entrepreneurs.

By integrating work in their learning process we expect them to not just have employable skills but also skills that give them better prospects for their own career paths.

The objective of Learners lab would be to prepare them with skills for today and for the future by making them build for communities, build for the future, build to explore or build their own idea.

The problem is there are not enough learners with relevant work experience & skills needed by the industry and also for them to decide their future path. 

The solution we have designed is to have work-integrated learning by giving schools/colleges exposure to work with industry peers, work on business projects, work on community projects. A platform that can give students access to open innovation projects posed by corporates, governments, startups, schools 

Build for communities

Build for future

Build to explore

Build their own idea

 we will create a virtual campus that will let students choose and design their learning within different contexts - this will lead to empowered students with evidence to present to employers - this will help to reduce the skill gap and labour shortages and more gainfully employed people

Meena Shah:

About Me

I am Meena Shah, cofounder & CTO of iView Labs and Founder of Creative Problem Solving Community and meetups. I have been in the IT industry for 16 years and have worked with Enterprises, Startups & Founders to understand and build their digital software products. I am 38 years old and I live in Ahmedabad, India. Prior to starting my venture, I worked with BenQ and Atos for 6 years from 2004 to 2010. I love technology, new ideas, new perspectives, thoughts and problem-solving.
I also am a voracious reader, an amateur writer, and an explorer.

My LinkedIn Profile
https://www.linkedin.com/in/meenashah83

I do write too.
https://meena-shah.medium.com/

My Interests

• technology
• entrepreneurship
• design
• Strategy
• Creativity
• innovation

We are looking to build a digital platform that is easy to use, has a great user experience, and allows learners from India, for now, to learn and earn by means of designing, building & showcasing ideas and solutions of real-world experiences. Our platform will enable companies to share their problem statement where they are looking for open innovation from a larger audience and make the learners engaged in the process of designing & building. This platform will also enable schools & universities to create their online & offline design, build & learn labs to help students exposed to opportunities of the real world by making them learn through the work-integrated modules.

The platform will also enable learners to build an experience through the platform and is also able to showcase their work.

To enable Scale to this whole process, it needs to be a digital platform (like Kickstarter, dribble, open ideo) 

System Flow

Revenue Model

1. Subscription Model for School, Colleges & Universities & independent learner's, Companies
2. Hiring Model 
3. Work showcase Model
4. Data

Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham Education Foundation, the 2021 Yidan Prize for Education Development, says there 3 types of learning, learning for school, learning for life and learning for work. 

Our theory of change is to provide a platform for our learners to choose the areas they want to work in and find meaningful work and opportunities for them to work & contribute on. This would increase their learning and learning outcomes which would make them more industry ready.

Having more work-oriented experience alongside education would enable better learning outcomes. This will lead to an increase in the quality of our workforce entering and will lead to an empowered youth with skills required for today & the future. It will also help to bridge the talent, employability gap 

Our impact goals 

1. Improve digital skills for youth
2. Improve the quality of apprenticeships for youth
3. green jobs for youth;
4. Create better access for youth in the rural economy;
5. youth entrepreneurship and self-employment;

No. of youths trained 

No. of internships taken 

No. of projects completed

No. of ideas generated 

No. of Schools enrolled 

No. of Colleges enrolled 

No. of Students employed 

We are looking for funds 

1. To hire & build a diverse team
2. To create & aggregate content & courses 
3. To create this Technology Platform
4. To market and increase its adoption

We plan to overcome these barriers initially by seeking

1) Funds for building this platform. 

2) Access to Philanthropy Network 

3) Scale to this platform 

4 - They are all currently working as consultants. 

Right now, the approach is to get the right network partners who are currently working in this space of education and have already registered as an NGO, and are working for the betterment of underserved youth in terms of increasing their digital skills set and skills which empowers them to not just be employable but also advance their personal growth.

To date, I have solely been doing the discovery process and finding the right network partners to take this ahead of but realized that without funds it would be difficult to move ahead and get good diverse leadership to make them part of this and make this a collaborative effort. 

The plan is to have a Knowledge partner (who builds and provides content for the skills ), Not for profit for execution, public policy and youth skill development and entrepreneurship partner,  University partners, and startup ecosystem partner as a diverse team to be able to collaborate and build. 

I tried a model to partner with Municipality for a specific problem on "Waste Management" where the problem would be given by the Solid Waste Management team. Knowledge partners as a consulting agency who have been doing urban development & CSR arm to carry out the execution. Well, it's midway currently and not gone further ahead. 

As in the process, I realized if we have to reach the scale we would need first to create the platform and then market it to the audience which would bring scale.

Our Value is simple to enable youth with skills for today & tomorrow. 

If our youth is empowered and have the right skills and access to opportunities, it is a win-win for all stakeholders

Learners: Will benefit as their learning will be relevant and practical to the industry demand and also will also get to choose to make the career choices they wish to. Having access to practical learning experiences early gives them better prospects to learn and better prospects for their career too.

Startups: They will be benefited as they will get access to a larger talent pool with employable skills and talent with practical learning embedded. We all know that the talent war has become fierce in the age digital economy, we will need to create new mechanisms to meet the demands in a new way. 

Educational Institutes: Is able to provide better learning mechanisms  and industry connect which helps them to shape up upcoming talent with relevant skills

Not for Profit: For not-for-profit organizations also, they are able to provide meaningful work to youth and make them engaged in community-based projects which also requires creative problem-solving.

Corporates: They can get run innovation contests and open innovation projects at scale.

I think this problem statement and challenge was the closest to the work I was doing and want to do. 

Also, another reason was that the MIT Solve platform itself is one of the inspirations I sought when I envisioned this platform.