Bw Businessworld Young Entrepreneur Award 2021

Article Featured On: Business World

“It came with its own set of challenges but we became open to the idea of not being restricted by the geographical boundaries but capturing talent even if we are not physically co-located,” said Pranav Saxena, Co-Founder, TheWorldGrad.

The digital explosion since a pandemic struck 20 months ago necessitated drastic changes in the lives of individuals, in the way of working,  in business models and even the economy. Most of all perhaps, it altered the campus-oriented world of students.

The education sector witnessed a drastic transition when the pandemic compelled a sudden shift from the traditional classroom setup to online learning. “It came with its own set of challenges but we became open to the idea of not being restricted by the geographical boundaries but capturing talent even if we are not physically co-located,” said Pranav Saxena, Co-Founder, TheWorldGrad.

Industry veterans are certain that virtual schooling and online education will persist post-pandemic. Commenting on the trend, Saxena said, “It would have been a harder sell to tell someone to pursue their degree courses totally online but today parents and students are a lot more accepting of the fact that online is an effective medium for education and learning.”

“Even before the pandemic hit,” recalled Saxena, “We were firm believers that technology and online education has a big role to play in democratising education.” He emphasised that his company was using technology as an enabler to democratize access to education.
Online education is not just learning through different mediums, but also a different science and art of engaging with students. Saxena pointed out that, “the pandemic (had) forced the online education industry into broader acceptance and forced industry players to be more innovative on how to deliver quality and how to teach students.”

TheWorldGrad brings online education to overseas studies and offers students an opportunity to begin their overseas degree online and complete it on campus.
The programme is designed in collaboration with partner institutions and provides end-to-end support to help students reach their goals for education. The WorldGrad steadfastly upholds the academic standards, pedagogy style and values of its partners.

TheWorldGrad is oriented toward building an effective online learning environment for students under the direction of  its passionate and zealous co-founders. “We have grown from 10 to about 50 team members. The pandemic was throwing up multiple challenges for many businesses and firms, but we have grown multifold. We are fortunate to scale up to five times our size during the last 12 months,” Saxena went on to say.
He said TheWorldGrad wished to offer the best student experience to prompt students to choose the institution over other industry players. “I do believe, competition is healthy,” quipped Saxena.

Expressing his delight in winning the BW Businessworld Young Entrepreneur Award, TheWorldGrad Co-founder said, “To a larger extent awards or milestones like these validate and make you feel good about what you are doing.”
Commenting on  being an entrepreneur in today’s uncertain and volatile scenario, he said, “Instead of challenging us, the recent unprecedented disruption helped us create career opportunities for teachers to work remotely. The pandemic helped us accelerate and create a general acceptance of online as a mode of delivery.”

Author: Deepak Shukla