Madan Padaki is the co-founder and chief executive of the Bangalore-based MeritTrac Services Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2000) — a skills assessments company. An engineering graduate of Mysore University, Padaki began his career with Wipro in 1995 and later served with Infosys and BFL Software (now Mphasis). In August 2000, he co-promoted MeritTrac with Murlidhar S. and Mohan Kannegal.
Newspeg. On March 10, Padaki was presented with the Young EDGE Award by D. Purandeswari, Union minister of state for HRD, in recognition of his leadership and impact on education. EDGE (Emerging Directions in Global Education) was constituted by a group of leading educational institutions with the objective of raising teaching-learning and governance standards in higher education.
History. MeritTrac currently has a headcount of over 300 full-time employees and nearly 1,000 certified test administrators operating in all the metro cities of India. Half the company’s annual revenue estimated at Rs.70 crore in 2010 is contributed by its education services division with the other half by government and corporate clients. In the past decade, it has tested over 10 million individuals including students writing competitive exams, Central, state government and private sector recruitment tests.
Direct talk. “If India is to transform into a meritocracy, it’s vitally important that skills and knowledge are tested whenever possible so that the right person is in the right job and that the true merit of collegiate and job aspirants is scientifically assessed. The quality of education dispensed by schools and colleges across the country is diverse. Therefore impartial and reliable testing and assessment services are crucial for national development,” says Padaki.
Future plans. “We are actively consi-dering the K-12 segment with teacher assessment tests. We will also launch Track Mark — which will enable onscreen marking of descriptive answers — shortly. We entertain international ambitions, but right now there’s a lot to do in India,” he says.
Autar Nehru (Delhi)