India has always been home to innovation and creativity, fostering human development over many centuries. Sadly these virtues have not fully manifested themselves in shaping the current higher education system despite having world class institutions such as IITs, IIMs, etc.
Students normally graduate from colleges with huge debt after graduation that they need to repay over a long duration. And conventional jobs are not lucrative enough. Those don’t give adequate funds to meet their monthly expenses or pay off the tuition balances.
Practically, there is a disconnect between affordable education and profitable jobs. It is with this problem that we are faced today. This grotesque mismatch spells huge economic concerns over time. It causes disruption in the current economic scenario and threatens to create long-term damage to our human capital.
Unfortunately, this crucial lacuna has often been overlooked or overshadowed by other issues. And this in turn has inhibited the society from addressing it boldly and effectively.
Although the revolutionary advances in technology have given new momentum to our education system, our contemporary education cannot be reconciled with the society’s requirements. Today, there is a gargantuan shortage of skills and talent, which is a direct outcome of an outdated education model. Even as we witness an exponential surge in Artificial Intelligence (AI) related job opportunities, there is an acute shortage of skilled workforce with AI, machine learning and data science skills even in the information technology sector.
Evidently, there arises a dire need for providing quality education and jobs to minimize this glaring discrepancy between educated youth and lucrative employment opportunities.
StartupTalky
AlmaBetter - Founders
AlmaBetter, founded by two IIT Kharagpur graduates, Shivam Dutta and Vikash Srivastava, aims to address these major challenges.
About - AlmaBetter
AlmaBetter is a platform for students to utilize their potential and to demonstrate their real-world skills. It brings together students and professionals. Through this platform, students can learn modern-day skills at a prescribed optimal pace. No tuition is required for the learners to enroll for the program. Upon finding a job after graduation, a small monthly payment is made by them for some period of time while they get settled down in their respective jobs.
"Education is a major component that can break down all social inequities, and AlmaBetter can provide a pathway to thousands of people to build their careers in Artificial Intelligence, thus making a profound impact in the world.”, says Vikash who heads the learning department at AlmaBetter.
Shivam, who heads the placement department, says “Traditional education puts all the risk on an individual student, while skill schools like AlmaBetter can remove the risk of education and provide equity on the skill frontier. Financial risk associated with education is a major cause of anxiety among students.”
AlmaBetter provides a Data Science program, popularly known as ‘Learn-Earn-Return’ or LER program. This 8 month long program is meant for final year students, graduates and working professionals aspiring to get best paying jobs in the domain of Data Science. Almabetter focuses on students’ success by taking every measure to meet their learning outcomes. In a day to day academic schedule, live lectures, live doubts sessions, assignments and quizzes are conducted not only to impart knowledge in the subject but also to increase their confidence level by providing a venue for interaction with experts in the field with regular guest lectures. This ensemble learning approach ensures that each student is confident and prepared enough for Data Science roles.
Almabetter offers strong placement support through an expanding network of hiring partners across various high growth startups, mid-sized companies and big firms looking forward to recruiting graduates from this program. Starting from resume workshops, job portfolio building and interview rehearsals, profiles of students are forwarded to a large number of organizations operating in various domains. Thus, we help students secure a job above 6 LPA or make 25% more than their previous salary. Once the students fulfill these terms and conditions they can opt for tuition fee payment througheasy monthly installments considering an Income Share Agreement.
A perfect blend of personalized mentorship and dedicated career coaching ensures guaranteed success of their students. Each student has the option of choosing their career coach who is a highly experienced professional from top companies and provides personal attention towards each student's placement struggles. At times students might face problems understanding a particular aspect or solving their respective assignments which prompts a friendly mentor for necessary help and guidance.
StartupTalky
AlmaBetter - Growth
EdTech startup AlmaBetter is gaining significant interest for its unique model from thousands of students. Due to its successful past batches, AlmaBetter has already become a partner-of-choice for several reputed companies throughout the country. It aims at nurturing a new generation tech workforce equipped with Artificial Intelligence skills and thus revolutionizing the traditional education industry.
Author: Parnas Ghosh
Source : https://startuptalky.com/almabetter-success-story/
Date : 2020-09-05T15:37:56.000Z