“We are creating a process to create innovation in the Education system, Aditya Berlia.”

With the sole purpose of making lives better, innovation strives for a better future of the students, teachers, educators and also themselves. If technology cannot aim, then it is our responsibility to, through great intent, wield it to serve society.

The goal of getting education isn’t to solve some of yesterday’s problems, but to tackle problems in the future that we don’t know about today, using technology that hasn’t been invented yet. Given this, what education requires is neither evolution nor reform, but radical revolution – in both what is taught and how it is taught.

The greatest challenge particularly around the landscape which we see today is the overuse of buzzwords today like innovation, entrepreneurship, without people taking the time to walk through what innovation means to them.  

We were in talks with Aditya Berlia, Co-Promoter, Apeejay Stya and Svran Group at the Indian Education Congress 2018, where he is trying to redefine innovation and how it can actually come about rather than just talking about it as a buzzword.

Aditya has been instrumental in developing the vision and strategy of the organization, where he is always seen envisioning, planning and implementing all the technological initiatives undertaken in the 27 Apeejay schools and higher institutions spread over India.

When Culture Meets Innovation?

Aditya Berlia opines that,” One of the biggest things that we are trying to figure out is how culture and innovation within an organisation works. For me, foremost importance lies in an organization which believes in innovation and understands that innovation doesn’t happen overnight. There is a process and culture, both when interlinked will reinforce each other.   

“Innovation comes as a byproduct. Organisation Alignment is a secondary concern for me. Innovating just for the sake of innovation doesn't make sense. One has to make sure that within the context of an organization you have a goal, a challenge, and a strategy, something that the organization as a unit wants to accomplish and innovates towards that. So, when an organization works as a culture of innovation, the alignment between all the different parts of the organization is important to allow them to innovate towards the same goal”, Aditya further stated.

What Works and what Doesn’t?

Nowadays people are talking about the design thing, but for us design thing was always to teach students, our faculty or the people who operates our organization.

“If we believe that we can train students, to look at innovation as a process, to do basic things like identifying problems,  figuring out what are the steps required for the solution. Innovation for them will always be a byproduct. Most importantly, students will be able to see their efforts immediately.  Particularly for our students, innovation teaches them how to do the processes and creating a mindset that encourages them to do so”, said Berlia.

The 2 Year Plan

Talking about his fundamental problem with Indian Education he said,” We tend to look at only the elite. There are 15 million students graduating every year and looking for jobs. We are mostly interested in talking about the top 100 schools and colleges in India. For me, true innovation happens when you have a regulatory system, an implementation system, a thought process and an approach that works for that 15 million people.”

Stressing on his future plans Aditya commented,” In 2 years, we have the New International Education policy coming up. I truly believe that India is at crossroads and we have an opportunity to radically and fundamentally change the way we approach education not just from a small tweak bur completely redefining the system. The current system is not working out for a majority of the people and they are demanding for something new and only through a system of innovation those answers will come out.”