At BrilliantRead Media, it is our constant endeavour to identify and share some of the unique and compelling stories from the startup ecosystem. As part of this, we invited yet another passionate entrepreneur Priyadarshini Sweta for an interview with BrilliantRead Media. Ms. Priyadarshini Sweta is a seasoned sales and marketing professional with over 16 years of work experience in Fortune 500 companies like HP and Dell.
She has done her Post Graduate in Global Economy and Business from University of Lazio (Italy). She has a BTECH degree from BIT Mesra, Ranchi. Her schooling is from Oak Grove School Mussoorie.
Sales is an art and Sweta excels in this art. Her customer negotiation, value selling, customer mapping/product mapping techniques has always helped her in achieving top level performance in her previous companies.
Selling innovative product/concepts which are new for the market needs special skills like finding customers who are adventurous. Sweta pioneers in initiating & developing relationships with key decision-makers in target organizations for business development.
Creative and multi-disciplinary executive, renowned for implementing strategies to build team effectiveness by promoting a spirit of cooperation between team members.
Let’s learn more about her background, her inspiring journey so far and her advice for our growing community!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Priyadarshini:
What attracts you towards entrepreneurship instead of a corporate career?
The motivation started by reading articles in newspapers and online that the “Employability quotient of fresh engineering graduates is very low”.
We started looking into areas where the gap exists. It was then found that most of the time the academia tries their best to bridge this gap, students also try to do their best however still something is missing.
Engineering is the study of real objects and to become a good engineer it is required that the students can visualize the concepts and relate them to real-life engineering problems.”
While taking interview of candidates for the firm where we worked, we have found many a times candidates who are very good in the theoretical part of the subject but the same person has never used it for solving any practical problem. Many a times the candidate has never seen the part/component he is talking about.
Many students do engineering and then move to some other field by doing next-level non-engineering courses. A majority of this happen because the student takes engineering as default graduation degree and never gets encouraged to continue in the field as he has never been able to visualize the world of engineering.
Our project is a sincere effort to bridge this gap and allow students to choose their field of interest (within engineering) and excel in it.”
‘Cups Innovative Education Pvt Ltd’ is such a unique name; talk us through more about it, please. Our audience would also love to know what kind of problem you are solving?
It all started over a Cup of Tea. All our innovative idea happened over a cup of tea hence the name.
Our mission is “Elevating Learning and Development” in an innovative way. So, the company name was generated from there and we both (me and my husband) love collecting CUPS from different countries we named our Company “Cups Innovative Educations Pvt Ltd”.
The formal education system has undergone very little or no changes over the year. Even after the pandemic, formal education is lagging behind the informal education system in the adoption of newer technologies. Thus, the root cause of the problem lies in
Student – the absence of any measurable unit to check the unobservable traits like studying abilities, personality traits or even mathematical ability of a student. Every book is designed from basic to advanced and thus a student ends up practising too many questions with the same difficulty level and hence consumes more time.
Parents – can only ensure that their ward studies, but do not have any measuring tool to check his/her ability/improvement.
Teachers – are using free tools like “Youtube” and “Google” to make their lectures more immersive and colorful.
School – Simply goes by the marks obtained in previous classes.
There is a huge gap in the formal education system, even we have faced it during our school time and are facing it now as a parent or Teachers.
> As a student we had to practice many books (with 90% of questions the same) to compete in any top institute.
> As a parent we seldom can understand whether our ward will complete in his/her exam or not?
> As a teacher, I always need to know the weakness of all my pupils to support them in the best of ways.
> As a school, I need to know beforehand the bright students on whom with some extra efforts I can make him compete in the best courses which will improve the rating/ranking/image of my school.
What does your company specialise in?
At e2i we have designed courses in a manner which tracks your learning pattern, checks your weak areas and presents revision points automatically. The AI behind is continuously able to track your capability level and compares with global data.
The AI then suggests you and present to you the areas which need to be revised again. You can easily set your goal and then track your performance, find gap and apply suggested methods to reduce the gap to reach your target faster.
We offer a unique AI-enabled learning platform:
(1) Which acts as an assistant to teachers/professors by providing them tools like interactive 3D models, situation simulators, system-based flashcards/quiz generators etc.
(2) which provides the students a method to learn fast and smart. It gives a platform to master a skill by learn, practice, test and repeat system.
Currently, the customers are addressing the problem by video-based lectures, coaching, Youtube or ppt.
Our solution offers customers the benefit of finding all resources at one place, resources are in simulator format to create what if scenarios, Resources are linked to learning pattern which is governed by the AI behind to find gaps and suggest personalized learning.
The details of our offering consist of:
– Motion coded 3D interactive content with hyper realistic textures for class 8th till class 12th, JEE & NEET preparation.
– AI based practice and test question with real time feedback on ability achieved, global ranking, previous and all-time best ability.
– Personalized assisted learning.
– Interactive system-generated flashcards for easy retention.
How do you manage to keep going despite the challenges? What drives you?
Innovation and selling new products is the way we have lived our careers. We are fully focused on our concept and have a very clear goal to achieve. We have studied the problem in depth and have been able to define it clearly.
Self-motivation and the clarity of the project have led us to invest more than 180K USD in the company till now from our own earnings.”
We have already completed the POC and have been able to win a tender from the Skill development council of India. We have been able to develop a platform for converting any books into interactive books (iBooks)
There is a very thin line between developing an interactive module for the teacher (as a teaching aid) and developing a course for the student, we understand this thin line and create our modules accordingly.
Who do you believe has been the biggest source of motivation in your daily life?
The biggest source of motivation for me is the Man behind me (My Husband). His immense support for my passion of being and entrepreneur and believing in me.
My family who has always been the source of inspiration and my strongest supporters of my crazy ideas. I have seen my mother struggling and working throughout her life and that is what motivates me to do more and more everyday and make her proud.”
What are some of the strategies that you believe has helped you grow as a person?
There are a few:
(a) Belief in myself
(b) Immense support from my family and my husband
(c) Manage my time
(d) Ability to take risks & venture into uncharted territories.
(e) Get Creative
In your opinion what are the keys to success?
I will say it straight that there are many factors but if you really have to have the key elements then to me these are the ones:
– Set clear goals
– Work-life balance
– Being innovative
– Ability to take risks and be patient
What’s the scope of impact of your product and company?
Our startup aims at revolutionising k12, Higher education, and the technical education part of the market with interactive content. We will work in the area of Geography, science and technology etc.
Area of scope is all schools, higher education institutes, coaching institutes, Corporates, skill development, students, teachers etc.
Last but not least, what are the three most important lessons you have learned in your life?
The most important lesson that I have learnt in my life is I need to have control as well as belief in what I am doing. Your comfort zone is your enemy.
There are many demotivators that one meets every day. Have faith in yourself and you will achieve everything. Stop comparing. You just can’t make everyone happy. Work-life balance is the key for the best life.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
