Shantanu Prakash, Chairman and Managing Director, Educomp Solutions Limited
Shantanu Prakash has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad 1988 and is a 2012 Advanced Leadership fellow of Harvard University. He founded Educomp Solutions Limited in 1994, a few years after acquiring an MBA degree. His vision has been to transform the teaching-learning process through the use of technology and best practices. The company employs over 14,000 people across 27 offices worldwide. Educomp is the leader in education content, professional development, online learning and the first company to set up high quality schools across the country Under Shantanu’s leadership, many awards and accolades have come Educomp’s way. Educomp was ranked number one in Education & Training in the study, “India’s Best Companies to Work for-2009”. Educomp is a publicly traded company on National Stock Exchange (NSE) in India.
Mr. Prakash is also the founder and Managing Trustee of the Learning Leadership Foundation (LLF), an organization dedicated to bringing best practices in education to under-resourced schools. He is also on the board trustees of over 30 educational institutions including, Modern School Delhi, Sri Sri University and the Great Lakes Institute of Management. He is on the international advisory board of Fundacao Dom Cabral, Brazil. As an investor, Mr. Prakash has made several investments in innovative early stage and mid-stage companies focusing on the internet, education, media, gaming, finance and infrastructure. He is a charter member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) an organization that connects entrepreneurs. He is a frequent speaker in education and business conferences worldwide.
Reflecting on your decision on plunging into entrepreneurship right after business school, what exactly was your thought process?
Well, actually the decision was pretty easy. I had already made up my mind even before I got into IIMA that I wanted to be an entrepreneur! When I graduated in 1994, India was at this very unique standpoint in its history of economic liberalization. The environment all around me was undergoing major changes. There were large opportunities to be tapped. And that’s when I thought of taking advantage of the opportunity at hand.
I grew up in a middle class family and did not have deep pockets backing me. I was therefore interested in starting something that involved a lot of intellectual capital rather than financial capital. Looking back, I did not compare entrepreneurship with job options in MNCs, banks and consulting firms since I never saw myself in those roles. There was therefore no comparison from that quarter. And that’s when I took the plunge! So far it has been a very interesting and satisfying journey. And given the dynamics in the education space in India, I feel like the more you go into it, the more problems you solve around! Education is always an unfinished agenda in India!
What made you choose the education space?
For me it was a blank slate – I did not have any family business or any professional to define my industry! I could have chosen to do virtually anything under the sun! However, education was an industry in which I had the first hand experience of the challenges involved as well as some ideas on how to address them. I started, like most entrepreneurs do, with a vision but not a large expectation of the financial returns. So there was a little bit of both the opportunities that arose as well as some level of intelligence that led to my decision of entering the education space.
We started our journey – the very first business by setting up computer labs in business schools. That’s when we realized that the opportunity was somewhere else. We observed that the parents had very high expectations of their kids schooling while the schools just did not have the ability to fulfill these expectations and the existence of private tutors was a testimony of that observation. We then took to creating content for school education. Initially, while the content was under development we faced several challenges but after 3-4 years when it was fully ready, it caught the eye of everyone in the industry and that’s when we became an industry wide success. We then diversified into teacher and vocational training and today we are present in pretty much every aspect of the education value chain!
What are the key trends or themes you observe, particularly when it comes to the use of technology in education?
India is a grossly underserved market when it comes to education. Our gross enrollment figures are the lowest in the ASEAN region. The numbers have to move to a more respectable state for it to sustain the growing economy and general economic development. There has to be a lot more primary education along with the training of teachers and the first step has to be to create high quality delivery mechanisms to achieve these. I see technology as the game changer that can allow India to accomplish these objectives. However, in addition to technology, the key is for all the players to come together- the government, the private sector as well as the non-profit sector to work together towards these goals.
What are the new opportunities that the Indian education industry provides today?
There are several opportunities today for entrepreneurs to tap into – including teacher training for the over half a million teachers as well as the whole area of vocational training in which 400,000 skilled people need to be trained to work. Then there are areas such as career counseling, teacher and student interaction as well as tuition (E.g. WizIQ) etc.
What would be your advice for students and alumni here at Kellogg who are thinking of returning back to India?
You have gone and had the best education in the world, now you should come back to utilize it in one of the best markets in the world today – India!
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