Monday, April 23, 2018

Impact Factors Fail in Evaluating Scientists. Why Does the UGC Still Use Them?



The journal impact factor has numerous flaws, which makes it highly irresponsible for the UGC to rely on it to evaluate a teacher’s research performance and decide whether she gets a job or not.
University Grants Commission. Credit: PTI
18/Apr/2018

Since 2012, nearly 12,000 individuals and 500 organisations have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). This includes India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT). In fact, in their joint Open Access Policy, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the DBT quote the central recommendation of the declaration verbatim, which is that journal-based metrics like the journal impact factor (JIF) should not be used as “a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decision.”
And yet this enlightened attitude has only partially filtered down to the ground.
The JIF is a simple metric, originally designed to help librarians decide what journals to buy for their libraries. It is the total number of citations received by a journal in the preceding two years divided by the total number of citable items published in those years.
In their book chapter preprint, Vincent Larivière and Cassidy R. Sugimoto lay out six major critiques of the JIF. The first is the inclusion of citations for “front matter” such as editorials, news reports, obituaries, letters to the editor, etc. in the numerator while not actually counting these items in the denominator as they aren’t ‘citable items’. The authors show how large journals like Nature and Science have used front matter to boost their impact factors. The second critique is the inclusion of self-citations (when a paper from a journal cites other papers from the same journal), which has led to documented cases of manipulation by unscrupulous editors.
The third critique is the arbitrariness of the two-year window for citations which favours certain disciplines over others. Larivière and Sugimoto write that, while “physics papers generate more citations than psychology papers within the first five years, the reverse is true for the following 25 years. … [U]sing a 30 – year citation window, we find that the first two years captures only 16% of citations for physics papers, 15% for biomedical research, 8% for social science papers, and 7% in psychology.”
Another related critique is that the JIF does not take into account the differences between fields and disciplines. Because of this, the indicator cannot be used to compare across disciplines. The difference in publication and reference practices means that “medical researchers are much more likely to publish in journals with high JIFs than mathematicians or social scientists.”
The fifth critique is the skewness of science research, i.e. that a small percentage of papers accounts for the majority of citations. Their analysis shows that for the large majority of journals indexed in the Journals Citations Report 2016, only 20-40% of papers receive as many citations as the JIF suggests.
The last critique is the systematic inflation of average JIFs, caused by a number of factors, including the rise in number of papers and references per paper. Some 56% of journals increased their JIFs between 2014 and 2015. Larivière and Sugimoto write, “As there is no established mechanism for acknowledging inflation in reporting, editors and publishers continue to valorise marginal increases in JIFs which have little relation to the performance of the journal.”
The JIF in India
In a recent paper, titled ‘Evaluation of research in India – are we doing it right?’, Muthu Madhan, Subbiah Gunasekaran and Subbiah Arunachalam discuss how the “the answer to the question in the title cannot be anything but ‘no.’”
(Muthu Madhan and Subbiah Arunachalam are affiliated with the DST Centre for Policy Research, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and Subbiah Gunasekaran with the CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute, Karaikudi.)
They systematically go through the evaluation and promotion frameworks of a number of different regulatory agencies in India and critique their use of JIF and other metrics. The DBT and DST still include cumulative impact factor as a criterion for awards like the Ramalingaswami Reentry Fellowship, the Tata Innovation Fellowship, the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award and the National Bioscience Awards for Career Development.
The Indian Council of Medical Research “routinely uses average IF as a measure of performance of its laboratories.” Laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research on the impact factor and number of papers published to assess scientists.
The National Assessment and Accreditation Council uses various bibliometrics including impact factors in its accreditation process. It also asks for the “h-index of each paper”, which the authors describe as “patently absurd” because it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the h-index means. Only individuals can have an h-index.
Business schools have instituted monetary incentives for publishing in high impact-factor journals. Dinesh Kumar, the chairperson of research and publications at IIM-Bangalore, told the Wall Street Journal in 2011 that the institute had been giving a cash award since 2006 to any faculty member whose paper was published in an ‘A-grade journal’.
The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences assigns impact factors of its own to journals and uses these scores to select fellows. This impact factor is calculated in an opaque and seemingly arbitrary manner. The authors argue, “The Annual Review of Plant Biology had an IF of 18.712 in 2007, which rose to 28.415 in 2010. Yet, the NAAS rating of this journal recorded a decrease of four points between the two years.”
But the most problematic deployment of the JIF is its use in the appointment and promotion of teachers by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education. The UGC calculates an Academic Performance Indicator (API) score which includes points for research. According to UGC policy, teachers earn more points for papers published in journals with a higher JIF. The authors of the ‘Evaluation of research’ article summarise the rules thus:
The API score for papers in refereed journals would be augmented as follows: (i) indexed journals – by 5 points; (ii) papers with IF between 1 and 2 – by 10 points; (iii) papers with IF between 2 and 5 – by 15 points; (iv) papers with IF between 5 and 10 – by 25 points.
As discussed above, the JIF has a number of flaws. It fluctuates erratically from year to year because of the two-year window. It favours certain journals and disciplines. It doesn’t take into account any kind of field-normalisation. It doesn’t predict citations. And it suffers from a creeping inflation. This makes it highly irresponsible for the UGC to rely on JIFs to evaluate a teacher’s research performance and decide whether she gets a job or not.
The UGC has further compounded the arbitrariness of its policy by formulating awarding points based on the ranges of impact factors. As Madhan et al write,
Take the hypothetical case of a journal whose IF is around 2.000, say 1.999 or 2.001. No single paper or author is responsible for these numbers. If a couple of papers receive a few more citations than the average, the IF will be 2.001 or more and the candidate will get a higher rating; if a couple of papers receive less than the average number of citations the IF will fall below 2.000 for the same paper reporting the same work.
In 2010, Anthony van Raan, director of the Centre for Science and Technology Studies at Leiden University, the Netherlands, told Nature that, “If there is one thing every bibliometrician agrees, it is that you should never use the journal impact factor to evaluate research performance for an article or for an individual – that is a mortal sin.”
Metric-based assessments discourage risk-taking and long-term thinking among young scientists. It tells them that they can’t afford working on something that won’t lead to citations and papers immediately. Institutions need to follow the lead of the DBT and consider signing the DORA. It would be the first step in signalling to young researchers, as the declaration states, “that the scientific content of a paper is much more important than public metrics or the identity of the journal.”
Thomas Manuel is the winner of The Hindu Playwright Award 2016.

Source: The Wire / The Sciences dated 18 April, 2018
(accessed on April 23, 2018 at 2.45pm)

An improved way to check your Scopus Author Profile!

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Source: https://blog.scopus.com/posts/an-improved-way-to-check-your-scopus-author-profile
(accessed on April 23, 2018 at 1.30 pm)

This Goregaon school is grooming eco-warriors to protect environment

Environment protection programmes are as important as the academic curriculum at VIBGYOR High, a school in Goregaon. Keeping in mind various pressing issues related to environment protection, the school has been taking effective steps to facilitate an environmentfriendly campus.
They have initiated multiple campaigns like ‘Go Blue’, to save water, ‘Waste Management’, where compost pits have been installed to control school waste and ‘Anti-Plastic’, where students have taken to clean the beaches of Mumbai, to raise awareness among students.
As a part of the waste management initiative, VIBGYOR collaborated with non-governmental organisation Daily Dump to install compost pits in their campus that help recycle food waste into manure.
This is used as fertiliser in the school garden.
These compost pits are situated behind the canteen, where most of the food waste is generated.
“Students are taught to segregate their leftovers into wet and dry waste,” said Jerry Paul, manager, administration, VIBGYOR.
As a part of the pilot project started in November, a total of 1,331 kilograms of compostable waste has been collected till February this year.
“Owing to the success of the compost pits in managing food waste, the pits are now being set up across all 28 schools of the VIBGYOR chain situated across the country,” said Paul.
Following the footsteps of corporates, the school has set up a Students Social Responsibility Council (SSRC) for classes 9 and above. “It is our collective endeavour to create awareness and sensitise our students about the anti- plastic drive with the focus to make our school free of one-time-useplastic,”saidTanya Gulrajani, principal, VIBGYOR High.
One such initiative taken by the SSRC is the cleaning up of Versova beach.
The school has been working on its beach clean-up project with Afroz Shah, a lawyer and beach clean-up crusader, for a year.
Every alternate Saturday, about 200 students of the school gather on the beach and collect marine debris.

Source: Hindustan Times dated 23 April 2018
Link: http://htsyndication.com/htsportal/ht-mumbai/article/this-goregaon-school-is-grooming-eco-warriors-to-protect-environment/27049707

Colleges plan workshops to help staff upgrade their skills

SELF­IMPROVEMENT Teachers to learn how to use technology in classroom and develop e­content

Our routine work revolves around conducting lectures, supervising exams and assessing answer papers. We hardly get enough time to upgrade our knowledge. It is good to know that colleges are noticing this and organising faculty enrichment programmes to help teachers upgrade. ASHWINI MHATRE, teacher
MUMBAI: At a time when college teachers are busy supervising University of Mumbai (MU) examinations and assessing answer sheets, college managements are simultaneously planning faculty enrichment programmes for their teaching and non-teaching staff.
Workshops on developing e-content, using technology in classrooms and assessment methodology are some of the topics that colleges plan to cover this summer for their staff.
Mithibai college, Vile Parle, which recently secured autonomy from University Grants Commission (UGC) had organised a two-day faculty development programme to help teachers upgrade to the new curriculum.
“We had experts from various fields, including head of departments at colleges that have already got their autonomy, who were part of the workshop. This not only helped our teachers brush up their knowledge, but also understand what more they need to do to be prepared for regular class starting mid-June,” said Nupur Mehrotra, vice-principal, Mithibai college.
RA Podar College, Matunga, will also organise workshops for its teaching and non-teaching staff during summer holidays.
“Even the non-teaching staff has been asked to attend workshops on financial management and personal development. We ask teachers in advance about the areas they need to improve and accordingly organise workshops during vacations,” said principal Sobhana Vasudevan.
The delay in announcing results for exams conducted in March-April 2017 by MU not only disrupted the schedule for the ongoing academic year, but also delayed the examination season for the current semester.
Exams that commenced in the second week of April and will end in June, leaving teachers with no summer vacation because they will be busy supervising and assessing answer papers.
Keeping in mind that the teachers are being overworked, several colleges are also planning to conduct these workshops by giving their teaching staff space to accommodate a small vacation.
“It’s unfair to expect teachers to keep working without taking a break. So this year, we have scheduled our faculty enrichment programmes in a way that teachers don’t have to compromise on their summer holidays or reporting for assessment duty,” said Naresh Chandra, principal of Birla College, Kalyan

Source: Hindustan Times dated 23 April 2018
Link:  http://htsyndication.com/htsportal/ht-mumbai/article/colleges-plan-workshops-to-help-staff-upgrade-their-skills/27049585

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Good Reads: April 2018

 57. Break the Glass Ceiling! By Aruna Sundarajan, Secretary, DoT
Voice and Data, Vol.25, Issue 3, March 2018
She is being dubbed as the ‘first lady in Indian telecom’ and is credited for bringing in reforms to India’s ICT arena. On the occasion of Women’s Day, Aruna Sundarajan, Secretary, DoT, sends out a message to the women workforce - to come out of cocoon and break the glass ceiling

58. IoT to be the Catalyst for Industry 4.0 by Jayant Krishna, ED & COO, National Skill Development Corporation
Voice and Data, Vol.25, Issue 3, March 2018
National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is playing a proactive role in acquiring new skills around Big Data, Data Analytics, Cyber Security, IoT and Android.

59. Software: Testing Times by Jyoti Bhagat
PC Quest, Vol 31, Issue 4, April 2018

60. Tech Outlook 2018
Dataquest, Vol XXXVI, No. 1, January 2018
Technologies and trends that will shape Enterprise IT in 2018 that will bring new technology trends that will change the way industry works


Current Science, Vol 114, Issue 7, 10 April 2018


62. Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) by Rajesh Gopakumar and Spenta R. Wadia
Current Science, Vol 114, Issue 7, 10 April 2018


63. Face to Face: On Research Misconduct: Hari Sridhar talks to Vidyanand Nanjundiah
Resonance: Journal of Science Education, Vol 23, No. 4, April 2018


64. The Billion Dollar Startup Factory: the idea and people behind Growth Story by Deepti Chaudhary and Debojyoti Ghosh
Fortune India, April 2018


65. Big Data meets Biology by Erika Fry and SY Mukherjee
Fortune India, April 2018



Science Reporter, April 2018

Cell Phone Radiation Affects Fertility; Make Changes in your Lifestyle for Healthy Living



Today, cell phones have become an integral part of human life. They are truly changing our life by making everything convenient and time saving. ........
 
To read more, visit: http://www.voicendata.com/cell-phone-radiation-affects-fertility-make-changes-lifestyle-healthy-living/  (accessed on 19 April, 2018)

Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Social entrepreneurship lab established at SPPU



PUNE: An entrepreneurial lab for social innovation has been set up on Sunday at the International Centre of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). It has received funding of Rs10 lakh from the European Union (EU) to start operations and is only the country's fourth such lab to receive financial benefits from the EU.
Vijay Khare, director of the International Centre at SPPU, said, "The lab has been established for budding entrepreneurs from the university. Innovative ideas that will give solutions to problems related to the daily needs of people in society would be encouraged through it."

The two objectives of the lab are boosting social innovation and entrepreneurship.

The international project, which has been approved by the EU, will be called Social Innovation for Local Indian and Israeli Communities and Graduate Entrepreneurs (SILICE).

Among foreign universities, the Tel-Hai Academic College in Israel, University of Edinburgh in Britain, the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, the University of Applied Science from Croatia and the University of Lisbon in Portugal have received funding from the EU to set up start-up labs.

This project is a partnership between institutions of higher education located in Israel, Europe, and India. The project aims to establish Centres for Social Innovation that will give students and workers tools for initiating, planning and implementing innovative and creative social business projects.

Khare said, "We will concentrate on solar energy and alternative energy sources, the clean India campaign and manual scavenging to bring out solutions from this lab. An alternative technology to eradicate manual scavenging will be our priority."


Source: The Time of India dated 16 April, 2018
Link: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/social-entrepreneurship-lab-established-at-sppu/articleshow/63775828.cms (accessed on April 18, 2018)

Statistics show less than half of engg graduates get job through campus placement

To read the full article, go to:
https://www.deccanherald.com/content/670582/statistics-show-less-half-engg.html

Reference: Deccan Herald dated 16 April, 2018 (Accessed on 18/04/2018)

Monday, April 16, 2018

Mumbaiwale: A bestseller in Bandra

Mumbaiwale: A bestseller in Bandra

Hill Road gem: An underground library with 10,500 books, run by a chemist who ought to be in a book too

MUMBAI Updated: Apr 14, 2018 00:51 IST
Rachel Lopez
Gharda libarary at Bandra in Mumbai.
Gharda libarary at Bandra in Mumbai.(Satish Bate/HT Photo)
I almost missed it. Walking down Hill Road, Bandra, where you can spend more in a restaurant than at the fashion stalls outside it, there are enough distractions. I nearly glossed over a billboard advertising a lecture that took place the day before.
But the venue seemed interesting – a library right on Hill Road, a few steps from Elco Arcade. You’re forgiven if you didn’t know about it either. The Bai Ratanbai Gharda Memorial Library is in the basement of Gharda House, a glass-fronted, nondescript building obscured by hawkers and kiosks.
THE PLACE
Walk in and you’ll realise it’s a treat for book lovers. The 10-year-old library is air-conditioned, spotless (none of the dustiness you’d associate with book collections), and contains more than 10,500 titles. Bharati Banerjee, the librarian, says between 600 and 800 new books are added annually.
There are thrillers, bestsellers, literary classics and the usual get-smart, grow-rich, expand-business books. But if you want to let your mind wander, this is the place. I found art and linguistics books (finally!), huge sections on medicine and world history (more than World Wars!), the complete Lonely Planet series (hurrah!), volumes of poetry and hard-to-find guides to world religion. There are biographies of everyone from Bill Clinton, Richard Wagner and Mao to Kiran Bedi, Nehru and Tilak.
THE MAN
The library has been set up by a man whose own story would make great reading. Dr Keki Gharda, 88-year-old scientist and Padma Shri, grew up in Bandra, attended St Stanislaus school down the street and is one of India’s brightest minds in chemistry.
He started off humbly, creating chemical reagents at home and supplying them to Elphinstone College, where he studied. His first job was manufacturing blue dyes in his 2,000 square-foot rented shed in Vakola in 1964. But something about an imported dye, phthalogen brilliant blue, popularly called German Blue, and used in school uniforms, gave him an idea. Gharda realised it was possible not only recreate the dye, but make it stronger. The new version came to be called Gharda Blue, and, if you’ll pardon the pun, fast caught on.
His company moved to agrochemicals in the 1970s, developing a faster, safer and cheaper way to produce a herbicide than a Swiss company. The method is now called the Indian Process – and the company is one of the largest producers of the chemical.
Think of him when you look at an Apple product. Gharda developed a polymer that keeps iPhones from overheating. Rare for a chemicals manufacturer, he’s not patented any of his unique processes, sharing it with the world.
The library honours his mother, who loved reading. It has 250 members, which is good news for you. The books you want will likely be available, you can browse in peace, and it’s a good reason to be distracted on Hill Road.
CHECK IT OUT
WHERE: Bai Ratanbai Gharda Memorial Library, Gharda House, Hill Road, near Elco Arcade, Bandra (W)
TIMINGS: Monday-Saturday 10 am to 8 pm.
MEMBERSHIP: Rs 1,000 annually (plus a refundable deposit of Rs 500). There are discounts for students and senior citizens.
Source: Hindustan Times dated April 14, 2018

Cuckoo Clocked: Can an app make you a better birder?

Cuckoo Clocked: Can an app make you a better birder?

Cornell Lab’s Merlin app is coming to India. They’re crowdsourcing images from local birdwatchers, and everyone’s aflutter.

The Merlin Bird ID app has changed birding in North America in the four years since its launch, helping novices identify species in seconds, from a single photo.
The Merlin Bird ID app has changed birding in North America in the four years since its launch, helping novices identify species in seconds, from a single photo.(Image Courtesy Cornell Lab)
In theory, it sounds perfect. You spot a bird in the wild (or on the windowsill of your concrete jungle), take a quick shot with your smartphone, and an app identifies the species in seconds with 90% accuracy.
For those who’ve used it, four-year-old Merlin Bird ID has revolutionised birdwatching. But the app, developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Caltech, using crowdsourced photographs, is perhaps better known for how academia, machine learning and crowdsourced data can collaborate towards conservation. In North America, where it was launched, it’s allowed ordinary folks to identify birds without bulky field guides or long-drawn-out Google searches. Among established birdwatching groups, it’s cut down endless debates on which bird was spotted. Naturalists the world over have been using the data to understand migratory patterns, habitat changes and other avian issues.
In January, the Cornell Lab announced plans to extend the app for birds in India – a decision that is as exciting as it is daunting. India ranks among the world’s 12 megadiversity nations, with 1,266 or 13% of the world’s bird species. But for Merlin to identify Indian birds, it needs more than 500 reference photos for every species. Local birders have been urged to contribute their pictures to build the database.
Some birds like the bright blue verditer flycatcher are easy enough – contributions have already crossed 750. Others like the blue-yellow Banasura Laughingthrush are so rare, there are only seven pictures uploaded.
India’s birdwatching community is divided over the use of tech-driven tools like bird-identification apps. Some say it will popularise the hobby. Others fear it will become a distraction, reducing the activity to almost a game. (Pramod Thakur / HT File Photo)
SPREADING WINGS
Mohit Aggarwal, 31, a bank executive who has lived in several cities and is now based in Mumbai, has contributed over 100 images, most of rare species. “I’ve focused on filling the gaps left by other contributors,” says the birder.
He hopes the app will soothe the ruffled feathers of India’s birding community. “A unique sighting usually causes controversy,” he says. Older birdwatchers, who’ve been bird-spotting before digital cameras, tend to be dismissive, even disbelieving, of younger enthusiasts’ pictures, he says. “Photos offer proof that a certain bird has been in an unlikely region. When a picture is up for identification, you’re typically up against someone’s ego. Machine learning may be able to answer without bias.”
For Albin Jacob, 36, a software engineer from Bengaluru, contributing more than 3,000 pictures was a breeze. He’s photographed more than 800 species across India and is a reviewer for the India portal of Ebird, Cornell Lab’s massive crowdsourced database of bird observations.
“I’m excited that the app will be available for India,” he says.
Source: Hindustan Times dated April 15, 2018

Monday, April 9, 2018

Is banning a solution to the perennial plastic menace?


Source: Daily News and Analysis dated 9 April, 2018

With $6.5 M in funding, this edtech startup helps professionals remain relevant in their industry

With $6.5 M in funding, this edtech startup helps professionals remain relevant in their industry

Neha Jain     posted on 6th April 2018
AEON Learning offers online education platforms for working professionals encompassing both higher education and technology skill upgradation.
At a glance
Startup: AEON Learning
Founders: Karthik KS, Sankar Bora, Vikalp Jain and Rahul Jain
Year it was founded: 2013
Where it is based: Bengaluru
Sector: Edtech
Problem it solves: Provides online education
Funding raised: $6.5 million
In a fast-paced world where growth and development take place in a blink of an eye, keeping abreast with the goings-on in your industry becomes most crucial. Hence, online education has become one of the booming sectors in India. With the increasing internet penetration and the euphoria of Digital India, online education is expected to grow manifolds. It has witnessed a significant acceptance among working professionals in the last couple of years.
Contributing to the growth is a Bengaluru-based startup AEON Learning. It is an online education platform for busy young working professionals, encompassing both higher education and technology skill upgradation. AEON Learning, through its platforms Avagmah and Acadgild, helps professionals upgrade their skills and capabilities to remain relevant in today’s rapidly evolving employment market.
Founded by Karthik KS along with his friend Sankar Bora, in November 2013, Aeon eventually acquired Acadgild, another edtech company founded by Vikalp Jain and Rahul Jain in 2014. The duo later joined AEON after the acquisition. Vikalp is President at AEON Learning and Rahul Jain continues to be Head of Engineering.

From brick and mortar to online

Karthik, who has 23 years of experience in the education sector, says, “With millions of working professionals aspiring to compete with their global counterparts they need to continuously upgrade themselves. AEON Learning was started to meet this opportunity by helping reputed universities in delivering quality contemporary education via technology and internet.”
The Government of India had announced that it was targeting to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in Higher Education (GER) from 23 percent to 30 percent. “We knew that educating millions more of young Indians to achieve this number could not be done without using technology, as the existing brick-and-mortar education system was already over packed. The only clear solution to build scale and address the issue of quality was by implementing technology. That is when we knew we had this fantastic opportunity of powering existing universities to go online and use existing faculty to reach a larger base of students across geographies to help India reach its GER target,” Karthik explains.
AEON claims to have reached 22,000 students across 66 countries, with 20 percent business originating from the US.  

Engagement-driven

Talking about the challenges while starting up, Karthik explains, “One of the key challenges we faced was that our solution was way ahead of the market. Our core offering then was for institutes and universities to offer their courses online. The online education industry in India was still in its infancy and the only popular medium for anyone who wanted to reskill themselves was through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The nature in which MOOCs were designed didn't really suit the Indian consumers as they are built on self-learning model and thus suffered high rate of students dropping out. Finding innovative, differentiated solutions to these problems became our main focus.”
Using technology as the core strength, the founders developed a learning platform that could replicate classroom learning in the digital world and further improve on it. Built on the principles of engagement, interaction and motivation, the core objective was to replicate the classroom environment.
The startup today offers student acquisition, engagement, retention, online content development, delivery of programmes, support, and analytics services, as well as programmes for marketing, finance, human resource management, and other related courses.
Sankar Bora, Vikalp Jain, Karthik KS and Rahul Jain - founders - AEON Learning

Product features

Avagmah partners with universities and offers access to quality education for working professionals. The universities use the Avagmah technology platform to help them reach out to a large audience through technology, with the platform enabling marketing, student counselling, enrolment, virtual classroom, student engagement, retention and more. Some of the universities and institutes on the platform include IIM Bangalore, Pondicherry University, NMIMS Mumbai, AIMA and Institute of Metro and Rail Technology (IMRT) among others.
Acadgild offers working professionals a platform to develop ready-to-deploy skills in new-age areas like programming, design and analytics. Acadgild’s hybrid education model brings together the intensity and rigour of the classroom with the convenience of technology, offering live sessions led by industry mentors. Acadgild offers relevant programmes like ones on data science, big data, blockchain, data analytics, and more.
AEON Learning has over 35+ corporate partners who have been upskilling and reskilling their employees on the platforms. Some of these partners include Infosys, Oracle, Cognizant, Abbott, MaxLife among others.

Founder backgrounds

The firm currently has a team size of 140 people.
Karthik KS, 52,  completed his engineering from NIT Kurukshetra and Management from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi. Previously, he had started 24x7 Learning, an edtech company offering e-learning solutions to corporates, and prior to that he was managing Microland’s education division – MicroUniv.
Vikalp Jain, 43, is Co-founder and President, who completed his B Tech from IIT Bombay. Prior to AEON Learning, Vikalp co-founded MOZVO, a social movie rating site, and was the CTO of FlipClass.
Sankar Bora, 40, who is Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at AEON, is a B Tech from NIT Kozhikode, and was the co-founder of Myntra.
Rahul Jain, 35, is Co-Founder and Head of Engineering at AEON. Prior to joining Acadgild, he co-founded MOZVO and had worked with Deloitte, Infosys and others. Rahul comes with a technology experience of over a decade and completed his B Tech from NIT Warangal.
AEON Learning’s revenue is from the students enrolling on the platforms, and each student paying the programme fee for their chosen course.
For the FY16-17 it clocked revenues of Rs 13.65 crore and claims to grew at  2.5x over the previous year. “By FY18-19, we are expecting to grow by 4.5x,” says Karthik.
This year, AEON Learning raised a funding round of $3.2 million from Ranjan Pai led MEMG Family Office LLP.
Till date, it has cumulatively secured $6.5 million from marquee investors like Vinod Dham, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Atul Nishar, MEMG Family Office LLP, Lionrock Capital, Zodius Capital and Jupiter Capital and Promoters Meena and Ganesh Krishnan.

Market landscape

According to a KPMG-Google report released in May 2017, the online higher education market is expected to touch $1.96 billion by 2021. Re-skilling and online certification courses currently account for a majority (38 percent) of the online higher education market, the report added. There has also been a surge in investments in the online education sector, with online skill training startups shifting focus from a university-based curriculum to a more industry-oriented training approach.
Besides AEON Learning, there are also Simplilearn and SchoolGuru in the similar space in India, while globally, companies like 2U (a listed company with a market cap of $3.3 billion), General Assembly and bloc.io are present.
Talking about its differentiator, Karthik says, “We are the only edtech firm in India that offers both short-term training programmes and long-term higher education degree programmes. Our student experience with real-time live lectures, discussion forums, projects, assignments, quizzes and vast learning resources help students get a better than classroom experience on the cloud, while providing personal attention from our mentors.”  
For the future, Karthik says, “AEON’s presence has already reached over 66 countries and we plan to focus on key markets like the US and Southeast Asia. Within India we are present in 150+ towns and cities with plans to expand our dominant presence in South India to the North and West regions.”
Source: Your Story.com (accessed on 9 April, 2018)

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