With the successful implementation of Aadhaar, India has been able to evolve a model of public digital infrastructure, which is different from other parts of the world. There is a large body of student population probably of around 200mn that has no access and/ or affordability for the top-end EdTech products.

“Learning will go micro and will become just-in-time expertise to provide a product or service... Credentials will become data-driven and your work will become your resume, as the world moves to data-driven micro credentials,” said Nandan Nilekani, chairman of EkStep and non-executive chairman of Infosys.

“Today, 2.5 billion people have smartphones and they have options in terms of data, apps and capabilities. This has an impact on education too,” said Nandan Nilekani Chairman, “Digital unbundling leads every sector, including education, to go from mega to micro and creates new ways to mix and match.”

Educators need to prepare for a coming “education revolution” that will see learners breaking from traditional models to embrace shorter spurts of education throughout their lives, according to technology expert Shankar Maruwada. He predicted that learners will move toward shorter courses of education and lifelong learning.

CEO and Co-founder of the EkStep Foundation, Shankar Maruwada, explains how they’re leveraging technology, big data and mobile platforms to drive forward education at scale in India. The idea was to think big: they aimed for a big goal to reach 200 million children in India and improve their access to learning opportunities.

Tens of millions of children across the globe lack a basic primary education and are unable to exercise their full potential as citizens and participate as productive members of society. This is arguably one of the worst shortcomings of the human condition. We are addressing this problem of early childhood learning through the EkStep platform. 

Nandan, along with his wife, Rohini, Founder of Arghyam Foundation, co-founded Ekstep Foundation, a digital platform for education that aims to address learning challenges in the primary education space. On the topic ‘Realising a Billion Aspirations’, the duo spoke about how digital platforms will give telemetry of the content in education.

Digital technology can rapidly transform how countries provide services such as education and health to their citizens. The public services of the future should be effective, efficient, fair, data-driven, and responsive to individual needs. And the groundwork to turn this vision into reality needs to be laid now. Data can be the key.