“In the West, mobile phones started out as products for the affluent, and a decade passed before they were widely available to the middle class. In Africa, we needed to make them available right away to the very poor consumers. Our customers wouldn’t have access to the kind of money that Westerners paid for monthly mobile contracts. So we created better options for each market, such as prepaid or scratch …
Corporate-backed Universities and the changing definition of ‘merit’
Over the past 5-odd years, a new wave of universities have taken birth in India. This new wave include Ashoka, BML Munjal, OP Jindal, Shiv Nadar, Mahindra Ecole Centrale and Azim Premji. In the next few years, we will see more names added to this list including Bennett University (where I work).
What distinguishes these six from from other private universities such as Amity, Galgotia, VIT is their avowed pursuit …
Unbundling The School Stack
The unbundling of the school stack is underway. Historically textbooks were the only part of the K-12 bundle that could be segregated from the full-stack. Separated from the stack, these could sell across schools and thus scale up. That explains why many of the biggest education players like Pearson etc are textbook cos.
What about other pieces?
Assessment is another that is clearly underway. In fact in India with the …
How stockbroker-investor RK Damani and software guru–investor Paul Buchheit think alike
I have just finished reading Supermarketwala by Damodar Mall. It is an interesting book on India’s fast-growing modern retail sector by a retail venture CEO, and has a lot of insights for anyone working in India’s retail / service industry. Still what I found most interesting was a chapter on how D’Mart, India’s most profitable grocery / supermarket chain, and its founder Radha Kishan Damani (or RK Damani as …
The Three Frictions of News
Recently on Quora, I posted an answer to the question “What is the revenue model of apps like News In Shorts?”
I am posting my answer for readers of this blog.
I dont think News In Shorts (NiS) has a revenue model in mind. In fact I am not sure they will ever arrive at a B2C rev model. There is possibly a B2B model – they could …
What I found interesting in Higher Ed last week
My blogposts
Apple University is Apple’s internal training centre, visualized in that distinct style that only Apple can. A look at how it works, and what it can teach B-Schools. Here.
What I found interesting in Higher Ed
Bertelsmann, Europe’s biggest media co (rev ~ €16b / $17b) is buying a controlling stake in Alliant International University, to enter the University space. Purchase figures were not available. It is …
Apple University and what it can teach B-Schools
Corporate Universities are not a new phenomenon. By Corporate Universities, I mean company-owned and operated training centres equipped to provide job-related skills and instill company culture, and not general-purpose universities founded by corporates. Some of the more well-known Corporate Universities include McDonald’s Hamburger U, GE’s Crotonville Campus, General Motors Institute etc. Wikipedia mentions that as early as 2001, there were over 2,000 corporate ‘universities’ in the U.S.
One of the …
Hacking Habits
Allow me to point out four interesting trends
- Leading VC firms are hiring top-name designers as Partners and Principals in their firms. John Maeda, ex-Dean of RISD was hired by KPCB as Design Partner, Irene Au by Khosla Ventures, Tom Hulme by Google Ventures and recently Jeffrey Veen by True Ventures.
- Big Business is buying innovative boutique design shops by the bucket. CapitalOne bought Adaptive Path, the legendary valley-based
A Freesheet for New Delhi?
A colleague who has recently joined us, wrote a mail to our Vice Chairman, sharing his thoughts on how a free-sheet daily could take advantage of the millions of people who travel in New Delhi’s Metro.
I detail the same below, along with my response. In my reply, I also refer to an earlier blog post Free newspapers : Why free translates to profits!
I will continue to update this …
What I found interesting in Higher Education last week #12
This is a list of what I found interesting in Higher Education news and happenings.
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Interview with Pramath Sinha, promoter of Ashoka University. Relevant for data points; 1,000 applications, to which they made 250 offers and finally 133 accepted to join the inaugural class. 60% of students are on some kind of scholarship, about 10% have a free ride. Median SATs at 2050, median CBSE 12th scores …