“The existing model of mass education can never scale to solve India’s unique challenge of educating the world’s largest child and youth popul-ation. India needs a completely new revolutionary model driven by new IT and internet technology which leapfrog bricks-n-mortar education to polish the hundreds of millions of rough diamonds within its population,” says Lucian Tarnowski (27), the London-based founder of www.BraveNewTalent.com (BNT), a platform that builds online communities around employment and skills exchange which is working towards transforming the education paradigm in India.
Despite his youthful years and offshore location, Tarnowski knows his prime target market well, having been a regular Christmas visitor to the Anandwan Centre of the late Baba Amte (1914-2008), the highly-revered social reformer who transformed this rehabili-tation colony for leprosy afflicted people from across the country into a globally acclaimed resettlement project. “My father was a close friend and supporter of Baba Amte since 1964. I have been actively involved in supporting Baba Amte through www.TakeHeartIndia. org since the age of nine and am running the charity since I was 18. Baba Amte was my earliest mentor!” recalls Tarnowski.
History. Tarnowski’s involvement with Anandwan prompted him to establish an IT and vocational training school for 100-150 blind and physically challenged children in Anadwan. This experience convinced him that the bricks-n-mortar model of education delivery would take “ages” to be sufficiently scaled up to meet the pressing education needs of the world’s largest child population resident in India.
“That’s when I became aware that India’s formidable challenge of educating children and adults also provided a unique opportunity to create a new free-of-charge education delivery model for India and the world through intelligent usage of new 21st century technologies and the internet in particular, all via peer to peer learning and skills exchange,” says Tarnowski.
Direct speech. Tarnowski’s research led him to discover the value of ancient India’s peer-to-peer learning model which “India had exported to the West in the 17th and 18th century, making a significant contribution to the industrial revolution”. Simply stated the BNT model is about connecting talent directly with potential employers by building online teaching-learning communities. The idea is for companies to show their profiles and build online communities of learners and potential employees, who are schooled online by their best in-service employees and shaped according to their needs and specifications. “The great advantage of this model is that it eliminates politicians, bureaucrats and teachers from the teaching-learning process,” explains Tarnowski.
Future plans. With the “well-fund-ed” BNT, which has established offices in Silicon Valley, London and Bangalore, having already signed up several blue-chip corporates including IBM, McAfee, L’Oreal and Starbucks, intent upon building “talent communities”, Tarnowski is confident that his three-year-old start-up has developed a win-win business model. Dheeraj Prasad, who hitherto headed Microsoft India’s education portfolio, has come aboard as managing director (India).
“Our client companies benefit because they have the opportunity to educate, shape and develop people according to their needs while discharging their corporate social responsibility. Simultaneously our users will receive free world class employability-related education of all levels via the tablet, mobile phone and any internet connected device. My advice to Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal who is also the telecom minister, is to get all of India’s 550 million children and youth online. This is an ideal opportunity to bridge the national skills gap — by democratising education and meritocrising opportunity,” says Tarnowski fervently.
Wind beneath your wings!
Dilip Thakore (Bangalore)