12 minute read
Bytexl
Preparing a New Generation of Coders Learning was introduced to the world at the turn eof the century in 1999. While the field was progressing steadily, the turn of this decade has Services industry, byteXL seeks to open the larger canvas of product-based ideology through Learning/Skilling and Upskilling which are integral for both service and suddenly made it imperative. This year, as we redefine our Product based companies. byteXL also creates awareness ways of living and learning, online learning platforms and of the IT Career path for students who are interested in EdTech Companies have entered a fast-track mode careers at Corporate and as Entrepreneurs.” facilitating the changing needs of the current education system. Along with Pavan, at byteXL, he was able to formulate a US-based byteXL, a Software as a Service (SaaS) programming languages along with steps to create a platform caters to a huge number of students on its career path by understanding the skill set of the students. platform. One of the advantages that this platform offers They later partnered with Mr. Raman (Executive director) is that it can reach to any nook and corner of the country who has been in the industry for 30+ years helping most where there is access to the internet and students have a of the engineering institutions in India to set up their labs. mobile device.
The platform is capable of online self-guided learning and has reading materials, Videos, Hands-on labs, byteXL’s solutions fall under the following categories: assessments, and discussion boards. Currently, there are 20+ programming languages and the platform also offer Explore – A completely online and self-guided learning instructor-led expert programming in Career tracks like platform offering 20+ programming languages. Learning Cloud/DevOps, AI/ML, Full stack Developers, QA is achieved through reading materials, Videos, Hands-on Automation, UI and Backend Developers. labs, assessments, and discussion boards.
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Bridging the Gap
The Founders, Karun Tadepalli (Co-founder & CEO) and Pavan Gorakavi (co-founder & CTO), while working as technology leaders often saw a huge gap in the academic world and IT industry needs. The duo spent a couple of years before starting the company, brainstorming ideas on how they can contribute to improving the productivity and efficiency of early entrants into the IT field.
Karun visualized the need for practical and structured learning to reduce the skill gap of the newly hired college grads. He says, “Along with India’s focus area of IT plan and created a structured learning course for IT
Byte-sized Solutions
BCAP – A 2-3 years comprehensive program for all engineering students to get trained in Foundation, advanced level courses and Expert track in the chosen career track. The trained students are also provided with Placement support, Resume preparation, Soft Skills prep, CRT and Coding challenges.
Entrepreneurship Program – It is a six-month comprehensive Academic Incubation program for 3rd/4th year engineering students from CSE/IT/ECE branches. It offers skill training and product forming guidance in emerging technologies. Workshops are conducted on business basics, and writing business plans, leadership skills, presentation skills, business etiquette and more.
e e LEARNING INDIA'S MOST CREATIVE COMPANIES TO WATCH
byteXL is an experiential IT skilling platform with “ learning and skilling as primary focus which helps students to plan his career by choice rather than by chance “
Karun Tadepalli Co-founder & CEO
Key Differentiators
byteXL’s 2-3 years program is augmented to the engineering curriculum, focused on a career path like AI/ML, Cloud/DevOps and Full stack development and more tailor-made to the needs of the IT industry. This is a big differentiator as most existing competitors offer in time training for 2-4 months which might be helpful for job placement but not complete landscape to build a real project or capable to build a product from the ground up.
Besides, the platform has an in-built editor that can support 20+ programming languages which can be leveraged in any browser and any device. It provides indepth analytics on the platform to both the faculty and students of the engineering colleges to track their progress and learning path. It also has the capability to choose a career path based on the AI skills assessment and access to an in-person career counsellor. It has also partnered with Leading India AI (an initiative to promote and teach Artificial intelligence) and various companies to help students with placements to start a career based on their skills and interests.
Renovate and Reinvent
One of the main challenges ailing the industry is the need to inculcate the idea of continuous learning to the students as their only focus in the early career is to get a job. In the current world where technologies are evolving very rapidly, upskilling is crucial. There’s a need to create awareness in the tier2 and tier3 colleges or rural India about the in-demand skills rather than just focusing on the hype technologies.
The team suggests that colleges should work with companies like byteXL to emphasize on the aspect of learning and reduce the gap from academia to real-world, create a centre of excellence, allow students to contribute on open source technologies rather than just focusing on the curriculum.
byteXL wants to develop itself as a one-stop-shop for IT learning/skilling/upskilling and innovation. “Our vision is to make the youth of India to be an invaluable part of the world workforce with required specializations, be able to develop products and empower individual goals,” concludes Karun.
Gamific
Work has been pretty much the antonym of fun as far as most people are concerned, and work-related training has been no exception to this. There has been a natural element of fear associated with training and a sense that it has been something that is merely supposed to be suffered through. This not only makes for a gloomy experience, but is also counterproductive since most people can’t retain information very well when taught this way.
There have been a few things harder than trying to apply the knowledge you gained by passively sitting through it. Gamification’s major benefit has been that it minimizes this very traditional, outdated style of learning by arousing challenging conditions for the participant at exactly the right level. This happens so that when learners feel challenged, they are constantly motivated to keep going and come back for more. Most of the people have been naturally wired to enjoy the whole process of conquering obstacles and winning to move up to the next level.
Learning made Fun
Gamification
The new Modus Operandi
Standing up to the Challenge
The prolonged use of gamification to aid in cognitive development would allow an increase in the activity of the regions of the brain to be able to allow for adequate development. Games that have been produced specifically for enhancing cognitive development are often known as brain games. Brain games have been quickly and effectivelybecoming popular and are based on various questions and problems that the user has to answer or solve. Brain games could hold the ability to improve the rate in which the brain processes and maintains the information.
Exercising your mind with interactive games is just as effective as normal exercise. This technique of exercise would be very beneficial in adolescents that have been enjoying playing video games but are not currently physically active. Active gamification has not just been limited to the classroom but can be used in learning outside the classroom.
For example, when teaching your kids, perhaps you break up your child's math homework into sections. Your child could then level up after completing each section to get hints that will solve a riddle. The other tactic being that maybe you can have your child create their very own study patterns and habits to make them feel involved. All this just proves that gamification at home is a very good way to get involved in your child's education.
The Techniques
The initial and main priority for being able to create an effective education-based game should be on the design of the learning dimensions first, and the entertainment value second. This entire process needs to ensure its focus on the core learning objective, and the gamification aspect should support that goal. Anyhow, an intelligentlystructured game could serve up some of the information, identifying comprehension and difficulties, and knowing how and when to proceed so that students are actually learning the material, rather than just filling time.
Another technique could be collaborative game experiences. According to sources at the Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation, it has been shown that collaborative learning not only helps promote understanding of diverse perspectives but also serves as preparation for future social and employment situations.
On the other hand, games that are based solely on speed tend to favor a small percentage of students that are good at answering questions quickly, leaving the rest of the student body out of the loop and unmotivated. This sort of unruly speed doesn’t directly equate to knowledge or success. To say that it’s not a bad idea that speed is part of the gameplay, attention should be given to balancing for all players to feel they are part of the journey.
To sum up, the role of ‘gamification’ has made an impact on learning that will be permanent. Teachers have been able to reach out to every student in one-go. This has become a constructive addition to the way of lesson presentation and experimentation and every learner is given a chance to express his/her creativity. Students have been able to learn new software, that could help them to apply the same for every subject. The variety of ICT tools for collaboration like Skype and social networking enhances the impact of the project and has provided students with new scopes and horizons.
- Vedika Mansukhe
Yenta App Bridging the Talent Gap
Japan’s tech startups bitgrit and Atrae just rolled out a professional ‘matching’ app in India offering jobs in India after Japan
About Atrae - Atrae is a Tokyobased People Tech Company that was formulated in 2003 with a vision to create businesses that expand people's possibilities through technology.
Japan’s tech startups bitgrit and Atrae brings their professional job ‘matching’ app in India
• The Yenta app will allow professionals and employers to ‘swipe right’ to the profiles of their interest. • Under the initiative, the company is also inviting data scientists from around the world for an online competition — ‘SwipeToSuccess’ — to submit their optimization models for the app. • Starting today, the competition will be accepting the optimisation algorithms for the next 69 days — until
Global data science platform bitgrit has collaborated with Atrae, a Japanese internet company, to launch their professional job ‘matching’ and networking application — Yenta app — to bridge the talent gap in India. The joint initiative will allow professionals to connect and engage with hiring managers for jobs in India as well as Japan.
Under the initiative, the company is also inviting data scientists from around the world for an online competition — ‘SwipeToSuccess’ — to submit their optimization models for the app. The idea is to build a model to predict the level of compatibility of a pair of users based on their profiles — and ensure that the app recommends the most linked and suitable profiles to the users.
“We are pleased to announce the launch of yenta in India as our first base for global expansion in collaboration with bitgrit. India’s data science community is inevitably going to grow in the future. With this competition, we aim to tap
the potential of data scientists and expand the services provided by the Yenta app across India,” said the CTO of Atrae Corporation, Toshiyuki Oka.
The competition will kickstart on Monday (August 24) and will be accepting optimisation algorithms for the next 69 days (till October 31, 2020). The top five submissions will be rewarded with cash prizes totalling USD10,000 ( nearly ₹7.4 lakh).
Commenting on the launch, Tetsuro Masunaga, Cofounder & CEO of bitgrit said “We are pleased to partner with Atrae for the expansion of their yenta app to India and this online AI competition to improve the app’s profile-matching algorithm. This partnership will strengthen bitgrit’s data science community and provide a platform to showcase their domain skills in emerging technologies.”
The mobile application, which was first launched in Japan in 2016, aims to connect professionals in the IT space. It currently has users from over 20,000 companies where professionals can network, get a job, engage with industry experts and founders for partnerships. The cross -industry platform will enable employers to spot and hire skilled talent and also interact with other business owners. The professionals and employers registered on the Yenta app can ‘swipe right’ on a suitable match and chat with them, if the other user also likes the profile. “You swipe right on profiles you're interested in, and if the other person is also interested and swipes right on your profile, you can message, meet up, and submit a review for each other,” Oka explained.
The ongoing pandemic has created a massive job loss as businesses came to a grinding halt. As per the data by the Centre for Monitoring indian Economy (CMIE), the urban unemployment rate in India stood at 9.15% in June — higher than rural unemployment. “This initiative is even more relevant now with the coronavirus-induced economic crisis that has severely impacted businesses, thereby triggering unemployment on a large scale,” Masunaga added.
The application is available for both iOS and Android users. The details of the competition can be viewed here.
In Focus
About bitgrit - Founded in 2017, bitgrit is a global data science community based in Tokyo with over 29,000 data scientists. The AIdriven platform aims to develop data driven solutions across industries like hospitality, tech and financial services. The startup has campus ambassadors and partnerships with over 30 universities in India - including the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
