Arthi Gerald is a Coimbatorean who works out of Bengaluru. She has done her doctorate on entrepreneurship and management from the Bharathiar School and Management and Entrepreneur Development. Arthi did her BBM at the PSGR Krishnammal College for Women and she is a university rank holder. After spending 18 years in the higher education space Arthi has founded Future Edu along with Sujaya Rao and Kruthika Muralinath in Bengaluru.
Arthi Gerald is a Coimbatorean who works out of Bengaluru. She has done her doctorate on entrepreneurship and management from the Bharathiar School and Management and Entrepreneur Development. Arthi did her BBM at the PSGR Krishnammal College for Women and she is a university rank holder. After spending 18 years in the higher education space Arthi has founded Future Edu along with Sujaya Rao and Kruthika Muralinath in Bengaluru.
Sujaya and Arthi were associated with the non profit initiative 'National Entrepreneurship Network' (NEN) for a long time and they had worked to bring in the best practices in entrepreneurship education from across the world to India. Both of them were responsible for the creation of entrepreneurship eco systems in a large number of colleges in India and South East Asia. In fact they had helped to set up entrepreneurship cells in colleges located in Pakistan, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. About 1000 colleges all over have been part of their exchanges nearly two decades and many of them have decent programmes connected with entrepreneurship now. Experiential learning certificates from the Stanford Technology Ventures Program has really been an asset in this regard.
Another certificate on Mentor Development from the London Business School has also been an asset for Arthi. "Both the programmes were done in India itself and were one year long. Later on I designed and developed programmes for faculty development in entrepreneurship. We touched the entire entrepreneur eco system by doing things for student entrepreneurship leadership, angel investors, entrepreneurs and start ups and for mentors of entrepreneurs. The enriching experience motivated us come up with our own start up Future Edu. After all, are we not from the land of Gandhi and we should practice what we preach. Of course the experience that I had gained while preparing my son Arincheyan for the USA over a period of 4 years helped me really. I had visited over 25 universities in order to help my son to make a choice," shared Arthi while discussing the subject on a rainy day in Coimbatore Cosmopolitan Club on Race Course.
Arthi has had the opportunity to work with the faculty of Columbia Business School, Stanford, Babson (the Mecca for entrepreneurship) and the London Business School in order to design and create a number of entrepreneurship programs. Her husband Gerald is an entrepreneur too. The mentor feels that a failed entrepreneur is an asset and can turn into a good mentor. "We begin mentoring the kids from the age of 13 for we are reminded of the story 'Hare and the Tortoise'.
It gives the kids an early start advantage for it really helps them to discover themselves. We do understand that in the fast paced world of today both the parents and kids want a big change in a matter of few hours. We do not have a magic wand but we can do magic in the long run. Its done by creating sensitivity, awareness in everyone concerned about the present position, aspiration etc., for it will help them to catapult themselves. Our vision is to enable and ignite young minds to realise their potential through personal mentoring. Parents compare a lot and therefore there is a lot of pressure on children. The focus is only on achievements and therefore expectations are high. Nothing much is done by the stakeholders to support the 'wish list'.
Our programme is personal and quite intensive. It requires a lot of personal engagement. Numbers are not as important as quality. Its essential that the kid has to be hand held to her or his destination and the mentor's guidance should be available for about 3 months at least during the early days at the place of study. Its important because they are in a completely new environment and culture at a young age. This can be overwhelming and the role of the mentor is sure to help them. Its essential that the mentor gives them the tools and framework so that it can help the students to nudge themselves towards success.The unique model of self discovery will help them for life.
Our 'Your mentor at school' programme has been a hit with the Anan Kids Academy and we were happy to work with the progressive Kannan Ramachandran. These kind of year long programmes are likely to be of great use to kids. A focus on the career path has to be tuned with the life of the person concerned. Its not only about going abroad but its also about adding quality to life in the long run," smiled Arthi while Sujaya nodded approvingly.
The team runs power mentoring programmes over a period of 3 months. They have entrepreneurship boot camps for schools, colleges and have done one at PSGR Krishnammal College for Women." Today mentoring and career guidance have become big businesses. Lakhs of Indian students are ready to go abroad every year. Numbers are driving the activity. However we are focused on quality. Everything cannot be equated to money. The future of the child is extremely important and its right that we grow in that trajectory only. Its important that the parents and children use their power of analysis at all times and its sure to put them on the path of growth," opined Arthi.
Long ago the visionary Chief Minister of Tamilnadu K.Kamaraj ensured that kids never had to walk beyond three kilometres to go to school and he brought in a mid day meals scheme for school kids. Later on Chief Minister M.G.Ramachandran extended the scheme and also permitted the opening up of the education sector. The education boom made Tamilnadu a big destination for edutourism. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru brought in institutions like IIT and IIM.
Philanthrpphists like the Tatas, Birlas and the PSG Family built a number of institutions. Now the students are soaring really high and are ready to go to different parts of the world for their higher education. The big opening offers opportunities and challenges as well. Its better to look before one takes a leap. The role of long term mentors like Arthi and her associates of Future Edu are sure to add value to the career paths chosen by the future citizens of our country.