Content Curator
Jagdish Sharma is the Co-Founder of UpskillMe Academy (A Cedro Systems Venture) which was launched 2 years ago with a mission to empower India’s fresh and existing talent pool with skills required across all industries. Jagdish is an accomplished Business Development professional with over 20 years of experience with multinational corporations where he created solutions for various verticals in the telecom space.
How UpskillMe Academy is helping working professionals and students to get ready for a job?
“We provide the latest industry-related content and training programs”
Our course content follows a holistic approach in all our learning programs. The entire career lifecycle is covered in our comprehensive course libraries.
Meaning, they take into account your entire career journey - right from helping you plan your career and discovering your strengths to running corporations effectively as a leader.
Upskillme Academy gives you much more than a topic-based solution (although we have that too). All our courseware is curated into structured learning paths that are designed to help you succeed in your job role.
Our courseware ensures job readiness for students through courses related to
- Business Communication, Productivity, Professional Improvement
- Technology courseware covering in-depth topics on Data, Cloud, Programming Languages and much more.
What do you mean by topic-based solutions?
“It means that the content depends on the type of job-skill that a user needs to succeed in their role”
Suppose somebody wants to become a data scientist or someone else is hired for a managerial role, so what kind of courses do they need to do. We classify such content and create an ‘Aspire Journey’ in our learning ecosystem. These Aspire Journeys are pre-curated learning tracks for users. Similarly, for technology professionals we have Aspire Journeys on Data Science, Big Data, Java or Cloud depending on the user’s role and area of desired expertise.
How was your journey in the last 2 years in UpskillMe academy and especially during Covid time?
“It has been a rewarding journey with UpskillMe Academy till date”
As co-founder of UpskillMe Academy, the last 2 years have truly been a period of great growth and change for start-ups like ours. The edTech sector in India particularly has been in the news for a spike in users. This is due to the fact that large numbers of people have been working remotely during this pandemic. UpskillMe Academy courses are available at any time and are online so they are easily accessible to all users which is a major shift from classroom-led training.
And this rise of the self-motivated learner’s persona has been a great game changer for edtech sector. For us, it’s the just beginning. Every time users think of upskilling themselves and moving up in their career, we want them to think of us!
What are the key factors that motivated you to join the edtech sector?
“Passion to provide education to everyone”
We are already into the e-learning ecosystem and offering our solutions to Enterprise B2B (business to business) customers. We have also received positive feedback from our learners from corporate and education sectors and that’s when we decided to provide this kind of enterprise-level training to the individual user. So this was the key factor behind starting UpskillMe Academy. Another motivation for me stems from my own experience of having studied in a small town. I always had the desire to find a way to provide a world-class learning ecosystem with no restrictions on learners’ education profile or their geographic location.
How does the curriculum of UpskillMe Academy ensure the best development of students?
“We update our curriculum on a regular basis with the latest global industry trends, developments and topics”
As I mentioned earlier, we have a collection of curated courses, resources, assessments, books, lectures and more to deepen the professional development of our learners. Broadly, our learning is categorized into three key areas: users can pick from topics such as business skills, technology & developer courseware and our leadership program. Each of these areas has comprehensive and continuously updated libraries. This ensures that our learners have access to the latest content all the time.
What are the biggest challenges you see for both higher education and online learning together?
“Lack of motivation, proper guidance and lack of well-defined learning paths are some of the biggest challenges”
If we talk about online learning, we often see that students studying IT courses do not have access to practice environments. This leads to incomplete training as they are unable to run their code and fix mistakes. Another challenge that online learners often face is the lack of a mentor. The next challenge is in terms of self-motivation for learners. Institutions faced challenging times during the lockdown as most states did not allow students to attend classroom teaching. It was during this period that UpskillMe Academy, which is an online learning platform was able to step in and fill this gap by offering accessible learning anytime and anywhere using personal devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets, etc.
How did your organization handle tough times during Covid and lockdown?
“During covid, we worked as a team and supported each other”
During the lockdown and the unpredictability that came with it, the UpskillMe Academy Team took on the challenge with the vision that we must not let our learners suffer and continued to provide world-class content and support. We ensured that team members have adequate time and space to manage their responsibilities at home. As a company, we worked on building authentic brand identity in showcasing our true potential to the right audience. After this period of lockdown, I am proud to say we have emerged stronger and more focused than before.
What would you like people to know about UpskillMe Academy that they may not know?
“We will be soon introducing technical and soft skills-based programs and condensed courses”
UpskillMe Academy will soon launch an exciting service for students encompassing aptitude assessment, counseling for placement in the right field in IT - in line with domestic and international job demand, 3 to 6 months customized syllabus for job readiness including technical skills and soft skills, professional Curriculum Vitae preparation and finally mock interviews followed by interview assistance.
Keep a lookout for our new launch!
What is your vision for UpskillMe Academy for upcoming years?
“To provide the best education and career guidance to build a job-ready India”
Our vision is to become India’s premium learning provider for upskilling the working professional in years to come. We are here for the long haul because we see a gap in providing holistic, quality training for working professionals and first-time employees.
Currently, as partners of Skillsoft, we are providing Skillsoft content to our users. Skillsoft is a leader in the eLearning space and is trusted by 70% of Fortune 1000 Companies for training. We are also in talks to provide our training in regional Indian languages for better accessibility across the nation.
In your opinion, how can our audience plan their career while pursuing higher education?
“Always ensure excellence in your skills and set a clear goal”
It is always important to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses before embarking on a career path. I highly recommend that new students undertake the Self Discovery Module under Professional Improvement that we offer as part of the Business Skills Collection. Also, we are launching an exciting new product line which is an innovative combination of tailor-made courses, one-on-one career guidance, placement assistance, mock interview prep and so much more.
Comments