CleverHarvey introduced the category of career-relevant skill building in the K-12 segment with the JuniorMBA program. SkillOutlook has a brief discussion with Mr. Sriram Subramanian, Co-Founder & CEO, Clever Harvey on various aspects.
- The idea behind the inception of Clever Harvey & how it’s unique from their competitors?
CleverHarvey was founded to help students age 10 to 18 learn real-world skills that unlock real-world opportunities. The world is changing before our eyes. Information that students used to memorize with great effort has now become freely available at our fingertips! While schools spend years teaching maths, science and English, real-world challenges need students to deal with people, technology and money. To cope with the unforeseen challenges and opportunities of a new world, students need to become versatile, adaptable to different situations and application-oriented. Founded by Ivy League and IIM Alumni, CleverHarvey helps students stay #alwaysahead by bridging this gap between conventional academics and the real world.
- How Junior MBA bridges this gap by teaching students real-world skills?
For the first time anywhere in India, students are immersed in real-world scenarios where they experience a career path. The JuniorCEO course takes students through an entrepreneur’s journey in 10 days – from coming up with a business idea to designing a solution for a customer to building a business plan and presenting it to investors! The JuniorCMO course puts students in the seat of a company’s Chief Marketing Officer where they take decisions on pricing, positioning, promotion and launch their own advertising campaign! The JuniorCTO course teaches students how the world’s largest businesses use the latest technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning or Blockchain to solve business challenges! Students who complete all three courses unlock the JuniorMBA certification by Ivy League Faculty.
- Details about Innovative Ideas by Students and how it can solve the problem regarding Online Classes?
We invite our top students from our JuniorMBA program to participate in the Online Innovation Summit – a competition for the best teen entrepreneurs to showcase their breakthrough ideas and win a cash award of Rs. 25,000 every month. These students have presented incredibly futuristic ideas such as:
- an electronic wristband for guards which monitors their heart rate and alerts their employers if they are asleep on duty virtual adoption agency for exotic pets (this one is live at virtudopt.com)!
- A breathalyzer to detect blood alcohol level that is embedded in a car’s seat belt!
- A spray that prevents wooden doors from absorbing moisture and jamming during the monsoons!
- A webcam software that detects a student’s eye movements and tells a teacher if one of her students in her virtual class is not paying attention!
- A method to convert waste plastic into bricks that can be used for construction!
- What are your thoughts on Upskilling, should students focus on it during this pandemic?
We are seeing the world-changing before our very eyes – all our assumptions from 6 months ago are now useless. Then how can we predict the world when these students will enter the workforce – 10 years later or 15 years later? The world will be drastically different. This means students should be learning ‘how to think’, and not ‘what to think’. Students should as much as possible get exposure to how the real world works.
- Future growth for Clever Harvey, funding details if any?
CleverHarvey introduced the category of career-relevant skill building in the K-12 segment with the JuniorMBA program. In the next week, we are coming out with another three unique offerings based on our own students’ suggestions – a JuniorArchitect, JuniorDesigner and JuniorGameMaker courses! We have also launched the world’s first assessment of 21st Century Skills – which tracks a student’s thinking skills all the way from 6th Std to 12th Std and alerts parents and schools if there is a gap emerging so they can course-correct. We’re excited by the tailwinds from the New Education Policy which require school curriculum to include more real-world skills. We are following a two-pronged strategy – reaching out to parents through schools and going directly to parents via social media. We raised 4cr in funding from CBA Capital in October 2019 and we are in talks to raise another 20cr in the next quarter.
