In today’s era of technological advancement, EdTech companies continue to face challenges such as securing a competitive advantage, resistance to change, privacy concerns, limited budgets, and a disconnect between the technology and education sectors. Accountability for progress in the education sector remains a challenge. Despite these obstacles, many leaders are actively working to address these issues. A notable example is Praveen Singh, the CEO of AASOKA by MBD Group, who is advocating for foundational learning to empower the next generation with strong educational foundations.

Praveen holds a postgraduate degree in Marketing and has been working since 2003. He completed his MBA in 2008 and earned a certification in Marketing from IIT Delhi in 2013. With over 20 years of professional experience, he has consistently shown his dedication to marketing. Praveen began his marketing career with an event management company and then joined MBD in 2008, where he has been an essential contributor for the last 16 years.

The MBD Group has been in the education industry for 68 years, starting in 1956 as a small book shop. Today, it has grown into a major business conglomerate with operations in India, the Middle East, the UK, and Africa, spanning three continents. In India, it has 23 branch offices, and outside India, it has offices in Cape Town (South Africa) and London (UK); however, it recently closed a small office in Sri Lanka due to local turmoil. The group is involved in education, EdTech, hospitality, and real estate. It also owns 10 state-of-the art printing units equipped with single color, two color, four color, and eight color printing machines. Additionally, it has in-house pre-press and post-press services, as well as warehousing facilities across the country. With 99 percent of its operations in-house, MBD has a strong IT team, including over 100 team members for both infrastructure and software, and a content team comprising over 500 members.

In the beginning, MBD established an online division to offer courses to K-12 students preparing for engineering and medical

entrance exams. However, it was realized that the timing was premature, and a new offline delivery model was adopted. When the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the company decided to provide digital content for free to schools, students, and teachers associated with MBD. This decision led to the development of a new product, AASOKA, a blended learning solution for K-12. AASOKA’s unique selling proposition is customization for each school according to its needs. Praveen believes in drawing motivation from tackling everyday challenges and fostering a collaborative team environment to accomplish common objectives. Thus, he devotes his full attention to anything related to education, focusing on the tasks at hand, whether they are short-term or long-term goals. His strive to persistently pursue the goals are only his success mantra.

Empowering teams to excel and deliver quality is my leadership style

Today, as developments are consistent, the company has an internal research and development team that stays updated on industry trends. They provide regular updates on the global and domestic EdTech landscape, highlighting noteworthy companies and new tools or technologies. The team disseminates research papers and presentations to the entire company, ensuring that everyone is well versed in the current state of the EdTech industry and any emerging technologies the company may be involved with. AASOKA uses up-to-date software and tools like Laravel for software development. In addition, the company has proficient teams in DevOps, Flutter, Backend, and Frontend, and is actively exploring AI technology. Notably, AASOKA has dedicated efforts to training an in-house AI model over the past year.

Every team member at AASOKA constitutes the core team and their collective effort proves essential behind AASOKA’s success. “We empower and train our entire team of 300+ sales team members to ensure customer satisfaction. The IT, sales, content, and supply chain teams work together to support schools and students, ensuring smooth operations. Each team member is committed to delivering their tasks 100 percent. Additionally, as a leader, I always empower my team and managers to make decisions and motivate their teams to deliver high-quality products to the market”, asserts Praveen.

Over, the years, the company has won several internal awards for its promising services to education. Moreover, leading a company with a team strength of 1000 individuals managing various verticals Praveen has also been acknowledged with over nine consecutive awards for his keen leadership in education. Praveen was also one to have been nominated as one of the ‘40 Under 40’ at the 11th annual leader summits and awards.

Growth Journey Ahead

Looking further, there is much that AASOKA want to do for the society, striving to grow and expand building on its EdTech solutions. From its journey in 2022 with the introduction of AASOKA into the market, initially involving 300 schools, today it has demonstrated significant growth in the past three years, i.e., 11x. Currently, it maintains a network of over 3,300 affiliated institutions, and its strategic ambition is to establish partnerships with more than 20,000 schools in India in the next two to three years. Simultaneously, it also aims to expand on a global scale.

“Young entrepreneurs should stay focused, be persistent, and embrace new technology. Success takes time and effort, so it’s important to stay dedicated to your goals”, signs off Praveen.