A Promising Paradox

Photos by Logan Kirkland

FALL 2018 | DIVIDENDS

INNOVATION

A Promising Paradox

By Tom Lammert

Consider this definition for paradox: one (such as a person, situation or action) having seemingly contradictory qualities. The key term in this characterization is “seemingly.” Qualities initially appear contradictory, but further consideration renders them complementary. Tech company Campusknot and its CEO and co-founder Rahul Gopal are in many ways defined by paradoxes.

Enter the Greater Starkville Development Partnership facility, a three-story building that houses local institutions and businesses. Find the elevator hidden amid a maze of hallways and ride it to the third floor. At the end of the hall is the office space for Campusknot, a company bridging the communication gap between tech-savvy, social media-obsessed college students and their professors – even that bespectacled professor whose suit is white with chalk dust because he spends his lectures at the blackboard scribbling notes.

To bring together professors and their students, Campusknot created software with an interface that takes its cues from ubiquitous social media platforms. Students create a profile (à la Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) then use it to communicate with their professors and peers. For instance, if a student misses a class, he or she can find the course’s Campusknot page and post a request for notes. Other students or the professor can respond to the request. This back-and-forth creates a thread that looks like the digital conversations associated with social media, not academia. Campusknot benefits students by providing an interface that mimics the apps with which they are comfortable, and it benefits professors who implement the software into their courses. Professors can use Campusknot to take attendance, administer in-class quizzes or polls, post notes and distribute assignments. Whereas other educational software can perform these same tasks, Campusknot allows users to do so through an interface that is intuitive and familiar.

Rahul Gopal is the Chief Executive Officer and a co-founder of Campusknot, and most of his work happens here in the company’s third-floor suite. There is a waiting room/kitchenette with a comfy couch next to the office’s entrance, and on the coffee table burns a scented candle. Gopal walks in wearing jeans and a navy blue shirt with sleeves rolled up past his elbows, as if to show he is ready to get to work. He squats to calm his puppy, “Z” – short for Zlatan, the first name of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a Swedish soccer star. Naming his puppy after a soccer player is indicative that Gopal adores the sport – he himself has played since he was a kid in Mumbai, India – so it is not a surprise to see the World Cup match between France and Uruguay playing out on a monitor in his office. Gopal seats himself in a chair that faces the game. Behind him, a window frames a perfect view of Main Street.

This office is not the stereotypical space designed by millennial entrepreneurs. Gopal does not pass time by lounging in a beanbag, and he cannot escape to an in-house yoga studio via a fireman’s pole. The Campusknot office has computers on desks with chairs pulled up to them. For a company with a mission to revolutionize academia’s stance on incorporating social media into its classrooms, the office is atypically conventional.

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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY

Some of the Campusknot team members: (from left) Sagar Shetty, Clint Vancourt, Ana Gonzalez, Rahul Gopal and Blake Tarver.

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MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY | COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Some of the Campusknot team members: (from left) Sagar Shetty, Clint Vancourt, Ana Gonzalez, Rahul Gopal and Blake Tarver

In contrast, Gopal’s journey defies conventions. In 1989, Gopal was born to Saroj and P.S. Gopal. He says his parents “came from nothing,” making $50 per week before eventually securing comfortable positions atop their respective fields. Their work ethic is not lost on Gopal, but he admits he did not adopt a comparable one until his mid-20s.

Consider Gopal’s academic history. He was not a top-level student as a child, earning Bs until college. His parents expected more from him, yet they did not scold him about his grades because he remained active. He played soccer, swam and joined the debate team. Gopal believes the time he spent with friends and athletics instead of on homework benefits him today because much of his job requires what he calls “soft skills,” like being a proficient communicator. It is difficult to argue against this perspective when he sits in the third-floor office space of his successful company. But it is equally difficult to believe that he did not focus on school, for the man holds multiple degrees.

After high school, Gopal attended college in Mumbai. He studied instrumentation but was not devoted to his studies. Unhappy and therefore unfocused on his engineering studies, Gopal quit.

DIVIDENDS | FALL 2018

FALL 2018 | DIVIDENDS

INNOVATION

Feeling dejected and lost, Gopal took one more shot at school. He reviewed English, took the required standardized English-language test along with the SAT and applied to a number of universities in the United States. He received acceptance letters from several. A college in New York offered him a soccer scholarship, but the money was not quite enough.

Gopal wanted to take advantage of a second opportunity to study engineering. He opted to accept an academic scholarship from Mississippi State University.

He arrived at Mississippi State hoping that a new country and a new academic environment could fix his scholastic failures. Yet when his first semester ended, Gopal found that he had underperformed in his classes despite having done well on certain assignments and showing an innate affinity for coding.

The following semester, his academic performance did not improve, as he focused on building an engaging reputation among MSU’s international students. At the end of his second semester, Gopal lost his scholarship, forcing him to work several part-time jobs. This became a turning point. After a semester of this grueling routine, Gopal earned a 4.0 and won back his scholarship.

It was also during this period that Campusknot began, with founder Hiten Patel and other cofounder Perceus Mody and help from the MSU Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach.

Gopal remained focused on academics for the next two and a half years, and he graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering. At that point, he jumped right back into school, earning an MBA from Mississippi State as well.

Gopal’s story displays an astounding number of paradoxes. He has an aerospace engineering degree though he quit studying engineering at one time because it was not his passion. He is a brilliant, well-spoken man who once failed basic English. He holds two degrees, but his history suggests he was not always an aficionado of academia. He owns a successful company that itself seems paradoxical: a social media platform that enhances post-secondary education instead of distracting from it.

Gopal epitomizes the truth that perseverance can develop one’s passion for the very thing that once seemed difficult or impossible to overcome. He transformed from an unfocused student to a decidedly educated leader of a company that aims to help the students who struggle like he once did.

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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS | MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY

That company today is valued at $5 million. Campusknot has active users in six states at ten U.S. universities – including, of course, Mississippi State.

Campusknot allows Gopal to help students learn, and it allows him to do what he has always done – connect people. If his company continues to succeed, Gopal will connect the prototypical professor with the screen-captivated student. And when these two figures find a more efficient way to communicate, it creates another paradox – a cross-generational conversation and collaboration.