InPods: Learning Analytics for Outcomes-Focused Education Date:   Wednesday , December 09, 2015 Education - the basic human right has a long impressive history to its credit. Although, adoption of technology has been the best part of fast-paced life, there is a new zest integrated to it - Analytics. With the evolving technology, and internet penetration, access & affordability of education is improving. However, we still wonder what is still missing and how can educational technology further enhance student outcomes? Well, though education is available online, the tools used to deliver are not optimized for measuring and improving the learning outcomes. Also, the learning experience is not personalized, and does not support adaptive, self-paced learning and collaboration. InPods has empowered educational institutes, teachers and students to engage in outcomes-focused educational experience. Bringing in over 20 years of experience to the company, Sanjay Jejurikar (Co-Founder & CEO) & Vivek Nirkhe (Co-Founder & CTO), both ex-Microsoft senior managers, were puzzled by the inability of fresh college graduates to become productive from Day 1. They were motivated to address this issue which they had faced throughout their careers while managing large and complex software projects. They believed that with innovative use of technology by educational institutes and content publishers it is possible to improve student outcomes. Sanjay & Vivek established InPods in 2011. InPods offers a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions and consulting services to educational institutes and learning solution providers interested in delivering outcome-focused education. All these offerings are built around a powerful cloud-based learning platform with patent-pending technologies in the area of effective use of learning data analytics and social learning. Continuous Improvement Philosophy: Design, Map, Deliver, Analyze & Improve As thousands of higher-ed institutes move towards an outcomes-based accreditation (OBE) system, they will be challenged to revamp the way they design their programs, re-design their educational strategies, define measurable outcomes at all levels, design better assessments and gather evidence of learning via variety of assessment tools,. With a large number of students and programs, embarking on such a change without efficient use of technology can overwhelm even the most sophisticated educational institute. As there is a large amount of data generated at all levels, institutes will require technology to provide actionable real-time insights based on this data and implement an efficient closed-loop system to engage in the continuous improvement process. InPods learning platform solves this by allowing students, teachers and program administrators use InPods to assess their progress towards the desired outcomes, perform gap analysis, take corrective actions based on insightful analytics provided by InPods and accelerate their march towards better outcomes. \"By working closely with our customers and addressing their key challenges we\'re now the No.1 cloud-based learning platform for outcome-based education programs in India\", explains Sanjay. With increasing levels of Internet access and adoption of cloud-based services and mobile devices, many higher-ed institutes are moving towards cloud-based identity management, document management, and collaboration services like Microsoft Office365 and Google. The InPods team believes in leveraging already existing solutions in this category and have eased life for customers by providing seamless single-sign-on integration with these cloud services. Meeting the compliance requirements for OBE accreditation does not guarantee that students possess skills and competencies required to become productive employees, making it imperative for them to access skill development courses over and beyond their regular programs. InPods partners with learning-solutions providers to make it easy for the students to enroll and engage in self-paced online learning experience to develop the habit of self-learning and acquire skills required to get higher paying jobs. Laying Stones to Invigorate the Path While Sanjay & Vivek are backed by a team that has worked in senior level management positions in large companies, they have nurtured an open work culture in which everyone is encouraged to learn and pursue hobbies. InPods founders have built a customer-focused company which prides itself with the best customer service record in the industry. Making India and Southeast Asia as their prime focus, InPods wants to serve 10,000 institutes in the region with a rising youth population, rising graduate enrollment ratios and interested in adopting educational technology for improving learning outcomes. InPods has targeted colleges in Tier-I and Tier-II cities to provide learning analytics platform and associated solutions. InPods is a technology platform partner for IUCEE (Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education) which shares InPods passion to transform the quality of the engineering education in India. Together, they have partnered with BMS College in Bangalore to form a Center of Excellence for Engineering Education to promote the awareness and training of OBE and philosophy of continuous improvement of the educational programs. Moving Ahead While technology is transforming the quality of everyday life, education has received a Midas touch. With its expected growth of 93.76 billion by 2020 with a CAGR of 16.72 percent, education technology industry has ways to go. In this flourishing industry, with the belief in creating value for customers, Sanjay and his team share a dream of playing a key role of technology partner as India transforms its quality of higher education. Sanjay remarks, \"We want to be the technology platform which helps students, strategy mentors, and educational directors utilize our technology to realize the vision\". Panel Key Management Sanjay Jejurikar, Co-Founder & CEO A serial entrepreneur and technology veteran, Sanjay brings in his expertise and experience of senior management roles at Microsoft. Sanjay was a co-founder and CTO of Disha Technologies which was acquired by Aztecsoft. Before MindTree acquisition Sanjay participated in establishing Aztecsoft as a leader in product engineering services. This visionary with his expertise in building successful businesses and passion for Ed-Tech, is now heading the strategic goals of InPods. Vivek Nirkhe, Co-Founder & CTO Ex-Microsoft & IBM technologist and a tech-buff, Vivek brings in his diverse knowledge of designing and building highly scalable enterprise solutions. With his expertise, he is heading InPods\' technology platform design and development. Offices: Pune & Hyderabad, India, and Seattle & DC in U.S.A. Clients: Over 50 colleges in the U.S.A and India. Offering: SaaS learning platform and solutions with learning analytics for better outcomes