A Bengaluru-based startup, Seminarroom Education, is ushering in teachers of a new kind into classrooms to address an old problem — the industry-academia divide that has hit the employability of students.
“Students hardly get any industry exposure. Seminarroom brings experts to speak on their respective domains to give students some amount of industry exposure, orientation, career awareness, and value addition to their academic learning,” says Punit Raj K.N., a former academician and founder and CEO of Seminarroom.
The platform, Seminarroom, is now being used by 30 colleges. Over 20,000 degree and postgraduate students are learning on it. The learning opportunity is available to educational institutions on a monthly subscription basis, says Mr. Raj.
According to him, the platform does not believe in replacing a teacher or academic content, but rather enhances value through bringing guest lecturers from across industry sectors. Seminarroom offers over 1,000 topics in various academic disciplines, including commerce, management, engineering, science, law and journalism.
Each user gets 20 industry sessions (webinars) in a semester and 60% of the content would be curriculum-centric and 40% industry/career-focused, as per the startup. Seminarroom has already brought on board 50 industry experts and is in talks with another 200 domain experts.
The edtech venture was incubated at and funded by PESU Venture Labs, a concept stage VC fund that empowers entrepreneurs. “Former professors, Mr. Raj and Pankaj Mehta, are behind this startup. Our focus is on helping students, professionals, and faculty members become successful entrepreneurs,” says Suresh Narasimha, managing partner, PESU Venture Labs.
