How Does AI, ML, and Cloud Computing Help In E-Learning?

The importance of E Learning platforms has outstretched a lot of people during this COVID -19 outbreak. While most of the employees across India are working from home, there is also a rise in the number of people who want to make optimal use of their time at home by upgrading their knowledge through some professional courses.

IntelliPaat, a pioneer in the training provider industry has experienced a huge surge in their platform, observing this time as the best time for people to upskill their existing skills. IntelliPaat provides courses for the corporate employees in the IT sector who wish to upskill their knowledge and have an urge to find themselves on the top. It also attracts youngsters, looking for a bright career but at the same cannot afford expensive professional courses. IntelliPaat provides various learning courses into Data Science, AI, Web Technologies, and Cloud computing.

Answers by Diwakar Chittora, CEO & Founder at IntelliPaat. 

How is e-learning coping up with the current pandemic? How is IntelliPaat faring?

Because of COVID-19 people are locked inside their homes. Companies whose employees can work from home have taken steps to allow their workers to do so. We are entering a world of digitalisation. Organisations that were hesitant to work digitally and having their employees work remotely have made a dramatic shift. They are willing to adopt digital technologies and are eager that their employees work from home.  

Colleges and schools are examples of such organisations. Every second college and school has transitioned from a classroom-based model of teaching to an online one. Even business schools which were dedicated to classroom-based instruction have migrated to online delivery. Whether it is premier colleges like IITs, IIMs or schools like DPS, each is now delivering education online. While online training is nothing new with the spread of the COVID-19 virus, its adoption has skyrocketed. The increase in colleges and schools teaching online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is not a trend- it is expected to be the norm even when the pandemic abates.

Over the past 30 days, Intellipaat has seen a 30% increase in traffic to its website. This increase is directly attributable to the pandemic and ensuing lockdown. Furthermore, Intellipaat has a feature that allows students to attend classes they missed. Many students who missed their classes due to personal or professional commitment are re-attending the classes to make the best of out this free time during the lockdown. There has been a 40% surge in the number of students wanting to re-attend classes.

We see a 25% surge in our online business this year. Before COVID-19, leading consultancies like KPMG had projected that the market for online education would grow by 10% annually. Because of the pandemic and we expect the industry to receive a further boost of 10% to 15%. Hence it will grow this year by nearly 25%.   

How are you cometing with leading players like Courera, Udemy and Udacity? 

The leading players globally are Coursera, Udemy, Pluralsight, Udacity and a few others. We compete with these players both with our outstanding training and delivery which are huge differentiators. Because we emphasise both, we have been growing annually at 100% despite being bootstrapped.  

We differentiate ourselves by understanding the needs of our learners and help them to achieve their end goal. 80% of our learners comes with an objective of career shift by learning high end skills which are high in demand in market like data science, big data, AI, business intelligence. Majority of our learners are professionals working in the industry with min 1 yr of exp upto cxo level. A professional with 2 years of java experience earn upto to 5-7 lakhs annually. On the other hand, even a fresher with data science expertise may earn as much as 8 -10 lakhs annually. Naturally, as a data scientist progresses in his or her career, he or she will make much more.  

Our faculties are subject matter experts and selected by a technical panel of experts. Our courses are created after through research of multiple jobs and speaking to multiple hiring managers to make sure it contains all the required skills that are required by top employers and that’s what differentiate us from others a lot. For instance, a student who enrols in a Data Science Masters Course learns not only learns Data science algorithms but also learns skills like Python, Statistics, machine learning algorithms, and big data tools, etc that are required to become a successful data scientist. Our courses are created to provide hands on exposure with multiple assignments and project work.

After completing our course, graduates have skills sets equivalent to those of professionals with six months experience in their fields. 

We also have a dedicated job portal where over 500 employers are registered. On the portal, 600 jobs are listed. Those who enrol with IntelliPaat are encouraged to visit the portal and apply for jobs. Furthermore, we market our students’ resumes increasing the likelihood they will find the job they wanted. We also prepare students for interviews by conducting mock interview sessions with them.  

Most of our competitors teach using static e-learning videos. We provide 24X7 support to students and offer career guidance. Our competitors do neither.  

Our superior pedagogy and support have allowed us to grow 100% year on year even though we are bootstrapped. Our competitors are suffering heavy losses despite being well funded.                

How technically sound are you when it comes to reaching out to your students?

We teach students subjects the industry demands most. These include data science, AI, machine learning, and cloud computing, big data, web development, etc.

Do you think that technology is the panacea for all current problems?

Nearly half of peoples’ lives are spent interacting with technology on daily basis According to Facebook, the average person spends ten minutes every day on its platform. Twitter revealed that once in every tenth person makes a minimum of three tweets daily. 

Platforms like Flipkart, Myntra, Uber, and Ola use technology that has ease everyone life and that is the reason everyone switched to them quickly.

Today AI is on the ascent. Mostly all automobile company are investing heavily in developing self-driving cars. Drones are fully capable of fighting in wars, most of the manufacturing units are mostly automated and people have built robots to work in natural disasters situations to save human lives. 

Technology is rapidly changing human behaviour. For instance, in 2004, nobody would have believed that by 2020, 2 out of every ten people would shop online. But this is the reality today. Over the next ten years, the percentage of people shopping online will grow from 20% to 50%. Furthermore, by 2028, even in India, autonomous cars will be commonplace. These developments are dramatic shifts. Technology will have a significant impact on peoples’ lives.       

Relying too much on technology may prove harmful. When people rely on technology to do jobs that were earlier done by people, it will lead to mass unemployment. Also, people who don’t take steps to learn new skills will become displaced by technology.

Where can we see IntelliPaat in the upcoming days?

We formed IntelliPaat with a vision to provide high-quality education across the globe at a nominal price. We envisioned enhancing the career growth of professionals. IntelliPaat has more than 150 courses in its portfolio. We expect to grow this number to 250 shortly. 

The company’s most significant footprint is in the largest tier 1 cities of Bangalore, Chennai, and Pune. We will be expanding to tier 2 Indian cities as well. IntelliPaat will also take a deeper dive oversees. We expect to increase our footprint to cover multiple cities in overseas countries. These are our plans for the next three years. 

We have launched courses in collaboration with top universities like IIT Guwahati’s E&ICT department and these courses were designed to provide academic rigour along with industry exposure to working professionals. Professionals who enrol in these courses can continue working as classes are held on Saturday and Sunday. Those who enrol in these courses upgrade their skills. They are taught by IIT faculty and professionals from the industry. IntelliPaat expects to grow 300% over the next two years.  

How has your entrepreneurial been so far? What can the budding ones learn now on?

To wannapreneurs, I would like to say that the entrepreneurial journey is wonderful, full of learning and but you should have never die attitude. As in this journey you will fail many times but the most important part is how quickly you can understand mistake and take quick action to fix. Many a times entrepreneurs suffer considerable stress but your passion towards your vision make you always in active mode. Focus on providing the best experience that you can to your customers so they become always loyal to you.