AICTE Ties-up With Edtech Startup To Connect Over 10K Tech Insitutes Across India Through Online Portals

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has decided to set up online community portals to connect more than 10,000 technical institutes — engineering, pharmacy, management, architecture and hotel management — across India.

The online platform, which will be set up over the next two years, will allow 10 million students and faculty to engage with alumni, parents and corporate partners. The AICTE plans to provide students with better opportunities at entrepreneurship, networking, jobs, internships, faculty capability building, higher education and social causes through these portals.

The project will be activated in a phased manner across various states. The AICTE plans to engage its regional offices, state universities, directorates of technical education.

Moreover, the council recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Fourth Ambit, a startup from Kerala, to implement the project.

Based out of Kochi, Kerala with an office in Bangalore, Fourth Ambit is a specialist networking platform that creates value across stakeholders in the education ecosystem.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairperson, AICTE, said, “We hope that this project will synergise the benefits of internship, job opportunities and skilling tests under one umbrella for the student community. We request college alumni and corporate partners to join us in this endeavour and help us set up an online ecosystem to support all the technical institutions in the country.”

The colleges can build their own student, parents and alumni communities on the online platform. The students can interact with people in their own college community and from those across the country as well.

Rahul Das, CEO of Fourth Ambit, said the portals will provide the corporates access to an exclusive network of professional students. “The corporates can engage the students and even recruit them,” he said.

The development was first reported at Hindustan Times.

​​Community Building Platform Fourth Ambit Raises $600K from 1Crowd

Bangalore based startup Fourth Ambit, has raised $600,000 (Rs 4 crore) from 1Crowd and its investor community. Fourth Ambit was founded by four college-mates: Jikku Jolly, Shyam Menon, Ruby Peethambaran & Rahul Das. Having spent more than 40 years between them in the corporate world, their roots at Govt. Model Engineering College, Kerala was the primary driving force to set up the company. Fourth Ambit is a specialist online platform for colleges that helps them to build and nurture vibrant student/ alumni communities. Fourth Ambit has on-boarded more than 1100 college communities including marquee brands like IIM Bangalore, NIT Trichy, NMIMS Mumbai, Manipal University etc.

Talking about the fund raise, Mr. Rahul Das, Co-founder & CEO of Fourth Ambit said, “This round of fund-raise has positioned us at the cusp of disrupting the education ecosystem. Expanding our college footprint is the key imperative. Product excellence, Strategic collaborations and People power are the building blocks for the same. We are delighted to have a partner in the form of 1Crowd. Along with the funding, their inputs in terms of building strategy and connects to further our proposition is immensely valuable.”

Talking about the investment, Mr. Anup Kuruvilla, co-founder of 1Crowd said, “We seek start-ups which are addressing a critical problem statement in the ecosystem and have the potential to scale. College communities have not seen either good engagement or participation on the official portals. Fourth Ambit aspires to disrupt this state by transforming college portals into vibrant engaged communities. The ecosystem at 1Crowd allows angel investors to participate and co-invest with us in early stage start-ups and benefit from our institutional approach to the entire process, right from origination to evaluation, due diligence and most importantly post-investment monitoring and mentoring.”

Even as Fourth Ambit looks at expanding its college footprint, they are cognizant of the need to keep their customers happy. “We take pride in the fact that more than 95% of our customers have renewed their contracts with us over the last 3 years. Customer Delight is however the next frontier for us, Customer Satisfaction is not good enough! Empowerment through the product and Energizing through the consultants are two key drivers for the same. Our ultimate aim is an ecosystem where every student and alumni continue to derive value at every stage of their life through community collaboration”, says Rahul.