IIM-B student prefers entrepreneurship to job

BANGALORE, INDIA: Breaking from convention, a bright student of the state-run Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) has preferred to be an entrepreneur in the education sector.

Opting out of placements for a lucrative job voluntarily, Aditya Kulkarni of the 2011-13 batch at the B-school in post-graduate management programme has co-founded 'Learning Outcomes' start-up with a view to making child assessment in schools a holistic process.

"Though a few standard tests to evaluate a child's performance are in vogue, there is a need for an effective diagnostic tool. Our aim is to make assessments at schools a pedagogical tool for measurement," Kulkarni said in a statement here Wednesday.

Kulkarni has roped in Rishikar, an IIT-Chennai alumnus, to set up the nascent venture.

"Schools have ample data on their wards' performance but do not use for identifying their capabilities and help them ... We do that by analysing data and generating results to be used as a feedback mechanism to complete the learning loop," Kulkarni asserted.

The company also plans to engage teachers and parents in the growth of their wards.

The start-up, which has tied up with select schools in Pune, will expand its operations to schools in Bangalore and Mumbai later this year.

The N.S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, an incubation centre set up by former Infosys co-founder (Raghavan), provided monetary and advisory help to Kulkarni in setting up the venture.

After graduating in electronics from BITS Pilani in Rajasthan, Kulkarni joined the B-school and interned with the Planning Commission in education vertical when the 12th five-year plan (2012-17) was being finalised, skipping summer placement in 2011-12.

"I have set out to do what I love most ... seeing children actually transforming their lives for the better in schools," Kulkarni added.

About 140 firms from the world over, including from India are participating in the campus final placements to the 2013 batch of 380 students.