Exclusive Interview with Osborne D'Souza, Director & Co-founder, Juana Technologies

In an exclusive interview with DQ Channels, Osborne D'Souza, Director & Co-founder, Juana Technologies talks about the future of Hybrid learning culture in the education sector, different opportunities for partners and how EdueBook.in and PartnerWins.in will help partners in this transformation journey.

One prominent trend that is now emerging is EduTech and hybrid work culture. Especially in the education domain, now the work system has moved from work from home to a hybrid system. So, how do you view the growth of EduTech in the hybrid work culture and how do you plan to harness this opportunity?

Talking about what hybrid learning is all about, and how this entire concept came into existence. So when we look at the last 24 months, it has effectively been a very testing time for the globe. Every industry in the market has got hit by the pandemic, education is not spare. And so, transformation in education has come about in a jolt and it has led to actually a hybrid way of teaching.

Now, the COVID 19 pandemic actually radically disrupted every aspect of our lives. Education included, this disruption actually left a lot of educational institutions clamouring for better ways to do things systems structures, and to ensure the continuation of learning for all the students.

Now, remote learning is more about experiences implemented by schools, in higher education, you're talking about universities, colleges, as well, during the pandemic that revealed what challenges and these challenges are basically all about equity, access and capacity. As we, went through the pandemic, schools around the world, we're examining the best ways to meet on campus, connect with the students remotely, schools and universities were exploring, different tools models, to meet the needs of their students. And then they came up with, three types of models, partial opening was one model, synchronous and separated was another model, rotational was another model. Now, when you consider all these models, hybrid learning is an environment that mixes all of these models together.

A hybrid approach to learning is built on the successes of these models, to intentionally create a learner-centred experience that is, very personalized, relevant, engaging, this is very important in order for us to successfully implement the hybrid model. So within the hybrid model learning centers, the learning is basically centred around personal relationships. Now, face to face, the traditional online way of doing things was supposed to be led by online platforms. And so, multiple numbers of companies came into existence, people started recognizing them, you had Microsoft Teams, one of the best platforms in education, for, of course, they were many others. People tried out WebEx and zoom and so on and so forth. But you know, the team kind of led the way because teams are not just a standalone collaboration tool, but it incorporates so much of the actual learning experiences that are required from a teacher relationship to a student. So hybrid model creates a meaningful connection with students and it ensures Basically a very synchronous class time. Very effective, it focuses on authentic and very relevant learning that actually provides students with not just so from a collaboration point of view, its voice. And it's a choice. It's about a hybrid is about peer tutoring. That means students learning from each other students self-assessments is another aspect that we need to consider collaboration with teachers and the students to design and carry out learning is a very, very critical and important aspect of the hybrid learning model. It's very human-centred, let us not forget that aspect of it.

So in short, the hybrid model combines the best in school and remote life. So if you're looking at students who are coming to school, and the ability for the instructor or the teacher to teach students who are at remote, then and that to all happening on a digital platform, it's more than just trying to do a quick fix, it's a way to enhance and accelerate the learning by providing student approach centred approaches. And all of these approaches should meet the diverse learners or the student needs. This is how I think hybrid learning is to be defined how it's helping us because we, as a global learning partner with Microsoft, have been education partners for the last 10 years, we have seen phenomenal, paradigm shifts, in the last 24 months, it's been an overwhelming experience for us as a partner with Microsoft, and we are a Gold partner. And that has allowed us to hone in on all of the experiences that we have had in the past 10 years, and then bring all that experience to the institutions. So it's this in short, is what I would consider, a hybrid learning definition. And what hybrid learning is to schools to institutions today. And how partners as like us would be able to help institutions to capitalize on all the experiences, it's very important for all partners to be well versed with various techniques, systems methodologies, in order for us to be successful in implementing a hybrid model, is not a quick fix is the future of learning and that's what we believe in.

What are the unique features of Indian EduTech and how can the partners help it grow?

With regards to partners, helping hybrid learning to grow, I think the first and fundamental aspect is to ensure that there is the partner ecosystem that, OEMs, like Microsoft, and many others have brought to the surface and they have been investing and spending millions of hours if you do a, you know, a collective number of hours that is spent on developing specific tools in education, partners should be able to harness that quantum of new tools that are coming into play. It's not just about saying All right, let's meet online and then we conduct a class that is, I think, a very wrong impression of how you would consider hybrid learning. There is a lot that has happened in the past 24 months. partners need to ensure that they are proficient, they have the capabilities, they know what they're talking about. They're well versed with the tools that are available, they're updated with the tools that are available. Anthony Sausalito is Vice President of worldwide education and micro and in Microsoft.

He's an avid believer in the education transformation framework, which is basically a guide. It's nothing but a guide for educational leaders to navigate the complexities of transformation. And in order to navigate these complexities that the transformation framework that has been built for partners and for And customers like institution schools, K 12, higher education, whoever is into learning, you have these schools, so many of them. All of these are built around a framework, which is built in collaboration with UNESCO. Now, there are four pillars, leadership and policy, teaching and learning environment, which are intelligence, and student and school success pillars. These are the four pillars that this framework is built on, partners should be able to leverage these pillars. Learn what each of these pillars means. Be able to educational institutions across the world in and specifically in India, on the value proposition that comes with engaging with folks like Microsoft, and UNESCO. These frameworks are built to be successful, they have been successful, we've got 55 case studies across the world that have used the education transformation framework, and have been very, very successful. And I think from a perspective of, basically, you know, if a partner is embarking on a journey, to help schools and Gateway schools to be successful, you can only be successful if you if you're basically well versed with all of these frameworks, technologies, tools, and abilities to harness these tools are very, very critical and important. Now, I'll just from these four pillars, I'll just take a short moment here to focus on what these four pillars build or focus on as far as components are concerned. Now, hybrid learning is one component of these four pillars. By the way, it's not the only component, we need to understand that part. devices for learning is another component. Optimizing sustainable operations is another component, equity inclusion and accessibility is another component. Curriculum and Assessment is another component. Analytics and AI is another component of improvement, which is continuous, and cultural. Being future-ready and skills that are required for the future of kids is an important component as well. And we need to focus on those. Focusing on centred learning for students is an important aspect of spaces, which are conducive for learning environments, which are conducive for learning, safety, security, privacy, these are all different, I just took a brief moment to sort of focus on the different components that are required. And these four pillars actually address this competence. Now, it's not just a quick fix, as I said in the first question, these are important aspects and understanding these aspects is, is critical for partners for all stakeholders, holders, I would say, the OEMs themselves. The frameworks designed to build on these components built on these pillars and to make this successful is very, very important for partners to realize, and for school leaders, to take cognition of why these things are very, very critical and important.

Microsoft has introduced partnerwins.in. And eduebook.in. So in your opinion, how is Microsoft enabling the partners/ ecosystem?

Eduebook.in and Partnerwins.in are two portals. Microsoft has multiple programs in their kitty. These are portals that can help partners to kick start that journey. Remember, the transformation framework is not a quick fix. For example, Edu ebooks.in. is a beautiful portal for basically learning so much about the different tools that are available from Microsoft. Microsoft has been leading this journey in the transformation of education, and it's a holistic transformation. It's not just a transformation of collaboration.

But as I mentioned earlier, all the different types of components that are addressed with this kind of transformation, partnerwins.in is a portal that has been designed by Ingram and Redington. In collaboration with Microsoft, to help partners to actually, network with each other to learn from other partners, it's a great tool, it's a great portal, I would say it's a portal, it's a place where everyone can gather, it's a place where everyone needs to learn from peers, and understand the different tools, the different transformation journeys that are available, how to leverage the different tools, learning is anyone, by the way, we are also a Microsoft global learning partner. And in short, it is the GTP, it's the global partner training network. And we've been exposed to such kind of tools to such kind of, training modules for partners. So partnerwins.in, and eduebook.in is great portals for partners to kick start the journey, if you're not already on the journey, then it makes a lot of sense to be part of these portals. But there's a lot more than you can learn. When you are a partner with Microsoft, it's a lot of learning, and there's a lot of engagement, there's a lot of, resources that are available for partners to leverage. It's all about learning, it's is not just about delivering. and I don't think that you know, such products or such programs that are developed by Microsoft are one box that fits every size, one tool that will fit everybody or one glove that will fit anybody's hands. So it's about these two portals that will, you know, greatly help partners, to build on on the journey that they want to take on when it comes to education and transformation of K 12 schools or higher education institutions.

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What are the different opportunities for Partners in the Edu Tech sector?

When you look at opportunities in the hybrid learning sector, I wouldn't use the word hybrid here, because, we've already been doing this for a long time now. Technology tools from Microsoft in education have not been recent, these are been there for a very long time. So when you look at cloud services, so we need to look at and understand how technology has evolved over a span of time. back in the days, when we had, you know, standalone systems, we had a server that would be serving information, and data within a school system, or college university, where students will be accessing all the information from a client-server model, which was on-premise everything has moved to the cloud now. So when you look at office as an, as a productivity tool for learning, or when you look at these, this entire offering from Microsoft, when it comes to office 365. It's completely online. It's completely cloud-based now, you no longer have to have servers insist in the school systems, or within the as an on-premise system. So when you look at these kinds of cloud services, which are available now, there are multiple opportunities that are available for partners to leverage. You need to be able to build on these cloud services, be able to, support the customers with the cloud services. It's not everybody knows everything about cloud services.

We as a company as a Microsoft partner, have our own support systems in place, what we do is we ideally, have a lot of focus on supporting the customers, our customers, which happened to be K 12, higher education institutions, they need to know how to leverage those tools effectively. It's not, it's not that everybody knows everything about how to use tools, and services. So when you talk about online services, online tools, and these tools are very, very important for ensuring that there is a lot as a customer, you're leveraging a lot on those on those tools.

For example, in higher education and you have the ability to use Azure cloud services, how do you do that? Who's going to build that? Who's going to support that? How do you leverage the cloud services, so students who are in the first year or second year or the third year leverage the cloud services, so that they can learn a lot more, and they can leverage these tools when it comes to Azure, so azure cloud platform, which allows you to build applications? Now, setting this up and making this available accessible to higher education is a very, very skill-oriented, seen as a partner, you need to know how to use those skills effectively. So support systems are critical, very important in order to support schools or universities or colleges. so I would say this is I mean, pretty much the overall understanding that I have when it comes to supporting or, encouraging partners to leverage the opportunity that is available there in the market. No longer is on premise system, but it is the cloud-oriented system in place right now. And to build on this support systems are critical and important and create opportunities for partners to leverage and that's important if you want to be successful.