ISRO's NSIL to Provide GSAT-16 and GSAT-18 Satellite Capacity to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala

NSIL (NewSpace India Limited), a commercial arm of ISRO, has recently signed agreements to provide satellite capacity from GSAT-16 and GSAT-18 to the state governments of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala. This initiative aims to broadcast educational content and benefit approximately 1.25 crore students in Andhra Pradesh, 1.5 crore students in Telangana, and 0.5 crore students in Kerala.

GSAT-16 and GSAT-18 are Indian communication satellites launched by the ISRO in December 7, 2014 and October 2016 respectively.

GSAT-16 provides communication services, including broadcasting, telecommunication, and data transmission. It carries 24 transponders in the C-band, 12 in the extended C-band, and another 12 in the Ku-band. Its coverage extends over India and neighboring regions.

GSAT-18 also serves communication needs and has 24 C-band, 12 extended C-band, and 12 Ku-band transponders. It covers India and parts of the Middle East. GSAT-18 enhances telecommunication, broadcasting, and broadband services.

Both satellites play crucial roles in expanding connectivity, broadcasting educational content, and supporting various communication services across India.

NSIL manages satellite capacity allocation through a structured process that involves coordination, agreements, and efficient utilization. NSIL collaborates closely with the ISRO, which operates and maintains a fleet of communication satellites (e.g., GSAT series). NSIL works with ISRO to allocate transponder capacity from these satellites.

Further, the entities (government departments, private companies, broadcasters) express their requirements for satellite capacity. NSIL negotiates agreements with these users. Agreements specify the duration, bandwidth, and other terms.

In the allocation process, NSIL allocates transponders based on users' service areas (e.g., state governments, educational institutions) and Frequency Band — C-band, Ku-band, etc.

NSIL balances commercial interests (leasing capacity to private entities) with social objectives (broadcasting educational content, rural connectivity). For example, providing GSAT-16 and GSAT-18 capacity to state governments for educational broadcasting.

NSIL monitors transponder usage, ensuring optimal resource allocation. It adjusts capacity based on changing demands and priorities.

Essentially, the Satellite capacity allocation involves distributing available transponder resources on a satellite to various users or service providers. Satellites have transponders, which are communication channels that receive signals from Earth, amplify them, and retransmit them back. Each transponder operates within a specific frequency band (e.g., C-band, Ku-band).

Different frequency bands serve different purposes. For instance, C-band is used for broadcasting, telecommunications, and data services. Ku-band is commonly used for direct-to-home (DTH) TV broadcasting and broadband internet.

Organizations (telecom companies, broadcasters, etc.) lease transponder capacity from satellite operators. They pay for the right to use a specific transponder or a portion of its bandwidth.

New Initiative by Dell Technologies, UNESCO MGIEP to Enable School Teachers with Technology

New partnership focused on disseminating quality education training that promotes learning and building 21st century skills among children. The association addresses the teaching community as its primary audience.

Dell Technologies today announced a new partnership at TECH 2019 between its Dell in India operation and UNESCO MGIEP to enable school teachers to adopt technology in classrooms. Through this partnership, ‘Dell Aarambh’ a PC for education program by Dell and UNESCO MGIEP’s ‘FramerSpace’ platform, will collaborate to train identified teachers. This partnership is a resultant of meeting the common objective of equipping teachers with the requisite knowledge to implement technology in classrooms.

Quality education is the foundation of sustainable development and is a force multiplier which enables self-reliance, boosts economic growth by enhancing skills and creating better livelihoods. In India, Dell is addressing the challenge of quality education and digital literacy through Dell Aarambh – a program instituted to help schools, teachers and parents understand PC technology and its use in education. Digital literacy will play a key role in catalyzing the growth of India's digital economy and bridge the digital divide.

This partnership enables the global community in achieving the UN Sustainable Goal 4.7 towards education for building peaceful and sustainable societies and UNESCO MGIEP in its mission of building social and emotional learning, innovative digital pedagogies and empowering youth.

Dell Aarambh intends to provide a springboard for teachers in ICT and to help them kickstart their digital learning journeys; and UNESCO MGIEP FramerSpace helps teachers with rich content creation abilities coupled with analytical insight to elevate the education quality. Given the commonality of purpose of both the organizations and synergy in their offerings to teachers, the proposed engagement between Dell Technologies and UNESCO MGIEP will be spread across three phases. In the first year of engagement, teachers across Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka will be trained.

FramerSpace is an AI-powered digital platform that helps teachers conceive, implement and monitor personalized learning plans for their students. The training will focus on teaching them the use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and frontier technologies to stay relevant and invest in the sole purpose of achieving Quality Education, as outlined under Sustainable Developmental Goal 4 (SDG 4) by Member States of United Nations. Since its inception in 2016, Dell Aarambh has provided ICT training to more than 85,000 teachers across 4,530 schools in nearly 80 cities in India.

The engagement will be spread across three stages:

Phase 1: Teachers who have completed Dell Aarambh foundation certification and are ready to create customized content for their learning audience would be trained further to use FramerSpace to create content. They can then become ambassadors of this learning methodology in their respective schools and regions.

Phase 2: A 200-hour training on FramerSpace divided into face-to-face familiarization training followed by completion of online training material, will be offered to 45-50 Dell Aarambh shortlisted teachers. At the end of this familiarization training, teachers will be awarded joint certification from UNESCO MGIEP and Dell Aarambh.

Phase 3: On achieving its goal of impacting 4,000 teachers over a period of 12 months, UNESCO MGIEP and Dell Aarambh will endeavor to create a joint impact assessment to explore the short and medium-term difference to learning outcomes.

Commenting on the partnership, P Krishnakumar, Senior Vice President, Consumer and Small Business, APJ, Dell Technologies, said, “In an increasingly digitized India, emerging technologies will play a pivotal role in what the future of work will look like. Teachers will be at the forefront of this revolution as they educate tomorrow’s digital workforce, today. We see our partnership with UNESCO MGIEP as an elevation of our intent and support to building capability among teachers who are educating the future workforce. With this positive step, we look forward to addressing a unified goal of achieving quality education in India.”

According to Anantha Duraiappah, Director, UNESCO MGIEP said, “Digital media is the reality of today and tomorrow, hence there is an urgent need to build our capacities in order to provide a meaningful and relevant education to the younger generation. We need to forge partnerships and collaborate with all stakeholders to achieve our vision of transforming education for humanity by bringing in digital pedagogies, trained teachers and quality content into the classroom.”

Through 2019, along with UNESCO MGIEP, Dell has organized ‘PolicyHack’, a forum for teachers, schools and education experts, to present real-life solutions for the advancement of the education system in India. At TECH 2019, findings of the 4 series PolicyHack were presented, and some highlights include:

• Lack of access to technology-enabled interventions holds teachers from gaining mastery over newer pedagogical tools


• Teachers are as keen as students to invest in on-going learning, but means to invest in similar programs are limited


• Even with little resources, there is a concerted effort on being innovative and relevant – peer learning sessions with guided efforts could be low cost-high return proposition.

The UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace (MGIEP) and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) is UNESCO’s category 1 Research Institute that focuses on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 towards education for building peaceful and sustainable societies across the world. In line with its vision of ‘Transforming Education for Humanity’, the institute’s programmes are designed to mainstream Social and Emotional Learning in education systems, innovate digital pedagogies and to put youth as global citizens at the centre of the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development.

Should Education Be Oriented Around 21st Century Skills?

The modern education system fails to meet the needs of people in many ways. It’s not uncommon for a person to be educated from one of the top universities in the world and still not know how to operate a software required for a job or speak a language that’s required as part of an occupation. All these factors limit a person’s employability, and he/she cannot avail the opportunities that come in the way.

The fundamental reason why people attain education is to be able to make a living. They hope that once they graduate, they’ll be hired by the top companies in the field operating in the market. But the fact of the matter is that the modern education system has failed to keep pace with the demands of the changing times. The present work environment is integrally oriented around technological abilities, whereas most of the education curriculum, particularly at lower academic levels, is still theory based.

Drawbacks of the Existing Educational Format

The present educational system is flawed because of the lack of sufficient exposure of students to the practical environment. Most of the education takes place in a closed classroom environment wherein the maximum that an institution can achieve is called a guest speaker or show the students documentaries. None of this is a substitute for practical exposure gained in the field.

Most of the exams and evaluation mechanisms are theory based. To perform well in them, a student has to cram up the text. While this polishes one’s cramming ability, the information stored in mind this way lasts only as long as the exam itself. That’s why so many students need help from essay writer. When students are exposed to practical field situations and are required to make decisions considering the challenges and problems at hand, they cannot manage to make rational choices. While learning theory is important, it’s even more important to know how to apply it.

Another big flaw in the current system of education is its backwardness compared to the technological advancement and fast pace of research and development in the present age.  The curriculum, practical work, and laboratory work taught in most schools today is the same that was taught to the students two decades ago. On the other hand, the world has witnessed a revolutionary change concerning technological growth and level of sophistication.

How to Best Revive the Current Education System

All these factors impact a need for the academicians to revisit the prevailing trends and assess the changing needs of times. The curriculum requires increased integration of the latest technology both as the medium of learning and as the content of the program. Students should have uninterrupted access to advanced technology at schools along with expert guidance and coach on its use. It’s advisable to make studying computer languages compulsory on students, and they should be made part of the curriculum from a much lower academic level.



Students can opt to keep studying them in more depth at higher levels, but they’ll anyway get sufficient knowledge when they’ve studied the basics in middle school and high school. Studying computers derives its importance from the fact that every field ranging from medicine to engineering and economics is computerized. Education cannot be complete unless a student knows computers well. Ideally, all students should be prepared for basic fixing of issues with computers.

Moreover, there should be an increased emphasis on the learning of a variety of languages. The world is becoming increasingly multicultural with every passing day. While many opportunities surface with such fast-paced globalization process, people’s ability to utilize them is impaired because of their lack of knowledge of languages.

Education System Should Be Focused on Developing These Skills

While talking about the redesigning of the education system, it is important to review the skills that the course content should be oriented around. The skills of the 21^st century are based on tools that can be used globally to advance learning, patterns of thinking, operating, and generally living anywhere in the world. Such skills include but are not limited to creative thinking, reasoning or critical analysis skills, metacognition, problem-solving, global citizenship, communication, and collaboration.



In addition to these skills, 21^st-century skills comprise numeracy, writing literacy, reading, and comprehension, digital literacy and information and communication technology. The course content should be revised so that it has increased focus and emphasis on these skills. It’s equally important to utilize technology to pass instruction and make technology a fundamental element of every academic level.

Education Startups: Opportunities and Trends

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow” - Anthony J. D’Angelo 

The introduction of technology in the education sector has made it easier for educators to fuel a passion for learning in the masses. A rapid increase in the growth of internet connectivity coupled with lucrative data rates has acted as catalysts for the growth of the education industry.

EdTech is considered to be one of the richest and fastest growing industries, as shown by the fact that the EdTech market crossed $17.7 billion in 2017. An industry that has combined the benefits of education and technology is bound to prosper while setting up some trends and opportunities along the way which we will discuss below:

E-Learning

E-learning is one of the most demanding and competitive segments within the Indian edtech ecosystem. Many EdTech startups offering online courses are cropping up all over the nation. From classroom curriculum that covers the yearly syllabus to course material for competitive exams like GATE, CAT, UPSC; there is an app-based and web-based education solution for everything. E-learning as a trend is also rapidly gaining momentum in formal classroom training where teachers take help of online course materials for a more impactful and visual learning experience. Remember reading about photosynthesis in your textbooks? Imagine what it would be like if you could understand it by a simple visual depicting everything in detail instead of cramming it for hours! That’s what e-learning does for you!

Vocational Skills & Training 

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), there are 31 million unemployed people who are looking for jobs. What these people lack is the availability of relevant skill sets that can help them secure a job which takes care of their basic needs. To make job-ready candidates, the edtech ecosystem can invest in vocational training courses like sales, marketing, teaching, IT and networking, which offer the technical know-how to allow users to land an entry-level job. Education startups thus can not only provide personalised industry and vocational training courses, but they can set themselves a class apart by offering hands-on training courses as well. With the growing popularity of virtual reality (VR), opportunities for virtual labs and simulation studies are indeed there but are still largely unexplored. To derive meaningful benefits from vocational skills and training, startups need to work with both industry and academia.

Competency-Based Learning

No one can ignore the importance of formal education and professional degrees, they are an irreplaceable part of an individual’s education, and also make a person eligible for the job market. Students need to have the right attitude and skills to get the jobs they desire. However, if a person wishes to grow in one’s career, one always needs to update their skillset. This is where competency-based learning comes into the picture. Courses which focus on upgrading professional skills (Like Python, R, SAS for the potential data scientists) have become a new trend in the education startup space, and it is here to stay. There are already a number of online startups that offer students and professionals alike with courses that will complement their profile. Some of these even help students with their job placements.

Language & Communication Skills 

[caption id="attachment_124993" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Image source -biasharaleo.co.ke[/caption]

Developing effective communication skills are a prerequisite for not only leading a more fulfilling life but they also directly impact your professional and academic growth as well. Whether you seek admission to a college, go for a job interview, or meet someone new, your communication skills always define your personality, and have the power to either make or break it. As a result, language and communication training provides a very lucrative opportunity in the education startup space. There are education startups which not only help students in clearing competitive exams, but they also help them in clearing their interviews of CAT, UPSC, IAS, etc., thus further paving their way for a successful career.

Language offers another excellent opportunity when it comes to the education startup sector. With a high frequency of students and professionals alike going overseas for higher education every year, there is an increasing need for people to learn new languages. Often tied down with busy schedules, people find it tough to devote time to formal language classes. Thus, online language learning will prove a worthwhile opportunity in the education industry.

The education sector is vast and is expanding with each passing day. It is an industry that is not only global in scope, but is also rapidly evolving with a vast pool of financial resources. When setting up an education startup one specifically needs to focus on factors like geographies, needs, and demographics. With all its dimensions, when focused on services like high-quality content, robust technology, mobile-friendliness, an investment in education startup can prove to be very lucrative. Like any other industry, education comes with its own set of challenges, however, it also has the potential to make a positive difference in the community.

[Top Featured Image - Innovation-village.com]

Edtech Startup Genext Students Secures $580K In Pre-Series A Funding

Genext Students, hybrid tutoring platform has secured $ 580K in its pre-Series A funding round from undisclosed investors.

Genext Students plans to utilise freshly raised funds to fortify its team, strengthen its tech backbone and expand the services to new cities such as Bengaluru, Lucknow, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Commenting on the development, Ali Asgar Kagzi, Co-founder and Director, Genext Students said, “Genext Students is not only an aggregator of tutors but also an ecosystem that benefits parents, students and tutors equally. In FY 2016-17, we have been able to register over 1000% growth with the optimum blend of offline and online personalised learning services.With our fresh round of funds, we aim to expand our services to more cities across a greater number of geographies and make use of technology in an enhanced manner. With a commendable growth of tutoring sessions witnessed in Mumbai and Pune, Genext Students is on a path of aggressive growth.”

Founded in February 2013, Genext connects parents with the home tutors for their children. Conceptualised by the cousin-duo Ali Asgar Kagzi and Asad Daud, Genext Students one-of-its-kind platform brings quality home tutors along with proprietary content (online & offline) to the doorstep of needy parents/students using technology as a key driver.

With more than 4,000 tutorpreneurs and 75% M-O-M repeat customers, Genext Students have completed 20,000+ tutoring sessions in the last lease year across Pune and Mumbai. It claims to have over 1 million users of its digital study content.

The startup offers a combination of private home tutoring and technology-enabled learning across the curricula of national, international and state level syllabi. It bridges the existing discovery, connection and delivery gap in the K-12 education system. Apart from delivering content in English, Genext Students claims to be first Ed tech company to have launched content for Hindi medium students in India.

BYJU’S Launches Parent Connect App, Offers Real Time Update On Child's Learning Progress

Edtech startup, BYJU’S has launched a new version of its learning app to enhance personalised learning experiences for its users. Featuring unique learning journeys, guided paths, actionable feedback and intelligent recommendations, this version of the app will be very interactive in nature.

Taking personalised learning to a whole new level, BYJU’S has leveraged big data analytics to trace the learning fingerprint of every student and create a personalised learning experience on its platform. The app creates personalised learning journeys for individual students based on their proficiency levels and capabilities which help them learn at their own pace and style.

Commenting on the development, Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU’S said, “At BYJU’S, we have successfully transformed the one-to-many learning model to one-on-one personalised learning experiences through our app. With high engagement and renewal rates, we have set a new benchmark in education technology nationally as well as globally. In this upgrade, we have personalised the app interface to determine every student’s capability and recommend the right ‘Learn Journey’. Based on the level of understanding, ‘Learn Journeys’ will be tailor-made to every student’s individual requirements to ensure a seamless learning experience. We are also creating learning products in local languages to reach out to students across regions.”

Not only this, BYJU’S has also launched ‘Parent Connect’ app that offers a real-time update on every student’s progress. This app will help parents stay up-to-date and be more involved in their child’s learning journey.

Byju, Parent Connect app will allow parents to get regular updates via the app which will enable every parent to play a proactive role in appreciating the child. Team BYJU’S comprises of an in-house team of engineers, data scientists, animators, artists and teachers who have studied and consolidated behavioural learning patterns of students to create this enhanced application.

Talking about the technology and product prowess at BYJU’S, Ranjit Radhakrishnan, Chief Product Officer, BYJU’S said, “This new update has added a whole new personality to the application. We have created unique learning journeys for students which will offer them a completely personalised learning experience. We are able to build an extensive learning profile for every student. With an in-depth understanding of their learning gaps and strengths, we provide actionable feedback along with highly personalised learning journeys and recommendations tuned specifically for each student. Technology and data are being utilised to build a truly digital personal teacher who understands the student intricately and crafts the best learning experience automatically.”

Across subjects, grades and chapters, Byju’s claim that they have created a powerful knowledge graph with over 50,000 concepts and relationships. With a reach of over 1700+ towns and cities, the team at BYJU’S is also working on learning products in local languages to expand and reach out to students across regions.

Launched in 2015, BYJU’s is the creator of K-12 learning app which offers learning programs for students in classes 4-12 (K-12) and competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE and GMAT.it boost to have become the most loved and preferred education app for students across age groups with 8 million users and 4,00,000 annual paid subscriptions.

Earlier in March 2017, Startup had raised $30 million from Verlinvest, a large Belgian family-owned, consumer-focused, diversification investment holding company.

BYJU’S Launches Parent Connect App, Offers Real Time Update On Child's Learning Progress

Edtech startup, BYJU’S has launched a new version of its learning app to enhance personalised learning experiences for its users. Featuring unique learning journeys, guided paths, actionable feedback and intelligent recommendations, this version of the app will be very interactive in nature.

Taking personalised learning to a whole new level, BYJU’S has leveraged big data analytics to trace the learning fingerprint of every student and create a personalised learning experience on its platform. The app creates personalised learning journeys for individual students based on their proficiency levels and capabilities which help them learn at their own pace and style.

Commenting on the development, Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU’S said, “At BYJU’S, we have successfully transformed the one-to-many learning model to one-on-one personalised learning experiences through our app. With high engagement and renewal rates, we have set a new benchmark in education technology nationally as well as globally. In this upgrade, we have personalised the app interface to determine every student’s capability and recommend the right ‘Learn Journey’. Based on the level of understanding, ‘Learn Journeys’ will be tailor-made to every student’s individual requirements to ensure a seamless learning experience. We are also creating learning products in local languages to reach out to students across regions.”

Not only this, BYJU’S has also launched ‘Parent Connect’ app that offers a real-time update on every student’s progress. This app will help parents stay up-to-date and be more involved in their child’s learning journey.

Byju, Parent Connect app will allow parents to get regular updates via the app which will enable every parent to play a proactive role in appreciating the child. Team BYJU’S comprises of an in-house team of engineers, data scientists, animators, artists and teachers who have studied and consolidated behavioural learning patterns of students to create this enhanced application.

Talking about the technology and product prowess at BYJU’S, Ranjit Radhakrishnan, Chief Product Officer, BYJU’S said, “This new update has added a whole new personality to the application. We have created unique learning journeys for students which will offer them a completely personalised learning experience. We are able to build an extensive learning profile for every student. With an in-depth understanding of their learning gaps and strengths, we provide actionable feedback along with highly personalised learning journeys and recommendations tuned specifically for each student. Technology and data are being utilised to build a truly digital personal teacher who understands the student intricately and crafts the best learning experience automatically.”

Across subjects, grades and chapters, Byju’s claim that they have created a powerful knowledge graph with over 50,000 concepts and relationships. With a reach of over 1700+ towns and cities, the team at BYJU’S is also working on learning products in local languages to expand and reach out to students across regions.

Launched in 2015, BYJU’s is the creator of K-12 learning app which offers learning programs for students in classes 4-12 (K-12) and competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE and GMAT.it boost to have become the most loved and preferred education app for students across age groups with 8 million users and 4,00,000 annual paid subscriptions.

Earlier in March 2017, Startup had raised $30 million from Verlinvest, a large Belgian family-owned, consumer-focused, diversification investment holding company.

Meet the Finalist Startups of ansrsource’s Learning Accelerator Program, ‘anscelerator’

anscelerator to mentor and boost learning startups to create breakthroughs in education technology.

ansrsource is happy and excited to announce the names of the selected startups for its learning accelerator program – anscelerator. Launched in July this year, the program has been initiated with a vision of bringing better learning to more people, more affordably. It will discover and enhance learning technologies that can facilitate effective authoring, design, and delivery of learning assets, with a collaborative authoring platform at its center. anscelerator is a 16-week intensive program beginning September 2016. The program is launched with Kyron Global the accelerator partner.

The two chosen startups are Mumbai-based insightGURU and Bengauru-based Nittio Learn. insightGURU is an online assessment platform, which empowers users to create customized assessments in a simple and cost effective manner. It is an enterprise class SAAS product with built in scalability and security, and supports realtime analytics and reporting. Nittio Learn is a cloud based technology platform that helps organizations develop and deliver online trainings for their core business areas. Nittio Learn's powerful authoring tool makes it easy to create and disseminate visual, interactive learning content and assessments on business specific topics in minutes.

Rajiv Narayana, CEO of ansrsource says that, “The anscelerator program will allow us to help startup companies further evolve their innovations using our unique window into the industry as a guide. We are excited by the new ideas and opportunities to improve the learner experience that are sure to emerge by working in collaboration with the partners we’ve selected.”

The selected innovative ed-tech startups will receive high-profile mentoring from ansrsource’s global pool of leaders and, technical enablement to work effectively from ansrsource, Bangalore. The startups will also benefit from ansrsource’s 12-year history successfully working with the best learning and education technology companies in the business. At the end of 16 weeks, the selected startups will present their technology, achievements, and related learnings to the ansrsource team, potential investors, and a panel of judges.

For more information about the program, visit http://www.ansrsource.com/anscelerator/.

ansrsource is a leading education solutions company providing learning consulting, design, and delivery services using a full-time team of hundreds of passionate global experts. ansrsource has more than a decade of experience working on the most compelling ideas in digital education. ansrsource designs and builds the assessment, instruction, and interactivity that facilitates effective online learning in academic and professional environments around the world.