While eLearning used to be merely an option for students, particularly those who were unable to go to their designated schools, the pandemic essentially required eLearning as a practical and safe means of continuing education during lockdown or quarantine. While most urbanized places can swiftly accept it, many students may find it difficult to make the transition to eLearning due to two primary factors: lack of/inadequate network and school faculty unprepared to deal with the abrupt change.
The eLearning sector had been steadily growing even before the coronavirus outbreak. However, as more and more companies invest in virtual learning experiences for their employees, there is an accelerated development in this sector.
Education has evolved from being a one-room, red-brick schoolhouse to a globe-spanning industry poised for rapid growth. According to a joint report of Google and KPMG, the Indian EdTech market was valued at $247 million in 2016 and is expected to reach $2 billion by 2021. The massive rise in the paid user base for online education platforms has created a green turf for EdTech companies across geographies to change the way teachers and students learn, forever.
This is where ByteXL comes into play. ByteXL is a US-based experiential hybrid eLearning platform (Online and Instructor led) with its headquarters based in Dallas, Texas (USA) and Hyderabad, Telangana (India). The team at ByteXL assures expertise in career tracks like Cybersecurity, Cloud/DevOps, AI/ML, and Full stack. ByteXL is a B2B model catering to the engineering colleges in India, with focus in south India currently and is expanding to other regions in 2021. One of the advantages that this platform offers is that it can reach to any nook and corner of the country where there is access to the internet and students have a mobile device. Read on to find out more about ByteXL and how it can be useful to you in many different ways.
Following are the highlights of the interview:
Brief us about the featured person and their journey in the e-learning space.
The Founders, Karun Tadepalli (Co-founder & CEO), Sricharan Tadepalli (Chief Sales Officer) and Satish Yedulapally (Chief Training Officer), while working as technology leaders often saw a huge gap in the academic world and IT industry needs.
Sricharan Tadepalli our Chief Sales officer has over 18 years’ experience as an industry leader in IT services with expertise in retail and aviation industries. Charan has experience in leading large teams and building enterprise applications. He has also worked with various consulting companies to hire new talent and has realized that the skill gap from academia to the real world is huge. To solve this problem, Charan joined hands with ByteXL. During this journey he became an advisor and member of board of studies in various colleges/institutions that have partnered with ByteXL.
What is the current industrial scenario of the global e-learning market space?
Recent years have witnessed substantial growth in hi-tech solutions in the field of education. With the pandemic entering the picture and the world undergoing a seismic shift, digital transformation has hit businesses, working professionals, and individuals across industries. The overwhelming increase in the use of mobile devices during the massive coronavirus outbreak has further accelerated the need for leveraging technology as a key enabler in making education accessible for all.
How is technology complimenting e-learning in the broader spectrum?
Quality education has certainly become the need of the hour. Since students who have inadequate basic skills are directly promoted to advanced courses across the spectrum of learning, there has been an emerging need to strengthen their basics with a solid foundation and enhance their learning through career shipping specialization courses. EdTech players in the market are empowering modern-age students to skill, upskill, and reskill through multi-year informal training programs and truly prepare them with the skills of the future.
At ByteXL, we realized that to enable India’s youth to tap on new opportunities and secure jobs, we need to make learning accessible to all to give them the competitive advantage. So, we onboarded a team of highly qualified and experienced technology leaders from leading IT majors who work towards helping young engineering students turn challenges into opportunities through self-learning courses and guided training.
How has the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic influenced the global e-learning space?
The global crisis has set an alarm for education regulators to adopt merit-based corrective steps. The fact that there is a possibility of lockdown and possible restrictions in the future in the way we live, play, and work cannot be denied. Constantly exploring new ways to use technology as a medium to improve learning experiences is the only way to remain agile and drive growth in the education industry. A hybrid model for institutions which is a mix of offline and online training for students and teachers will be the future of learning and training. EdTech and digitization at large will greatly supplement the education process by offering personalized learning solutions and new avenues for students to engage with teachers. The demand for online learning platforms like ByteXL is likely to increase, as they provide tremendous benefits to students to gain adequate technical knowledge needed to open a realm of job opportunities in the IT industry.
Even before the onset of the coronavirus, ByteXL was pushing for digitally transforming the higher education sphere. We realized that there was a skill-gap between academia and industry and that students lacked the technical skills needed to be “job-ready”. To resolve this, we started ByteXL with the mission to enable today’s youth to be future-ready and become key contributors in the world economy. Our platform focuses on critical learning aspects of college students to boost their career growth. We collaborate with institutions and work closely with students to develop key skills in IT programming languages and emerging technologies and make them ready to compete against the world’s best tech talent.
What would be your strategic approach to scale your business in 2021 and beyond?
To meet the growing demand of a skilled workforce in the IT industry, ByteXL is dedicatedly working towards creating a one-stop platform for students to develop the required skills in the field of IT and innovation. Students will undergo an extensive learning program and gain the confidence as well as the competitive advantage to overcome challenges and increase their chances of getting hired by the world’s leading tech companies.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the e-learning space?
eLearning or EdTech is a booming sector and there is always need for education. That means there is more demand than supply. Even though there are more than 5000 EdTech startups in India the supply is less compared to the need. In addition, self-learning is still in evolution phase so I would see lot of innovation required in order to achieve maturity in EdTech.
Where do you envision yourself and your company to be in the long run and what are your future goals?
‘To empower young aspirants to become an indispensable part of the future workforce by equipping them with future-proof IT skills remains our focus and we continue to work towards the mission.’ ByteXL is envisioning to become leader in learning and skilling of engineering graduates right from the beginning of their course rather than being a finishing school.
