Students Go Professional With Iwillstudy.com!
In India, thousands of students with a technical background graduate every year. A lot of questions have been put forward on their “employability”. iwillstudy.com launched by Ritesh Ambastha at Ahmedabad, Gujarat aims to fill this gap and groom students as per industry requirements.
“After working for more than 4 years in industry post my engineering degree, I started looking for the meaning of my existence. I always wanted to help the society by solving out fundamental problems & issues. Education was the segment that had touched my life – both at the average college from where I passed out & at IITB where I worked as a trainee & a research assistant for more than a year”, says Ritesh when asked about the genesis of this idea.
The core team at iwillstudy.com (iWS) comprises seven people, with Rites
h leading the wagon:
Ritesh Ambastha, CEO: After completing his degree in Computer Engineering Ritesh joined Powai Labs Pvt. Ltd, an IIT-B startup where he worked on Core Java. Later on he was appointed as a Research Assistant in IIT Bombay where he worked on Java based desktop applications and J2ME based mobile applications. Post that, he joined another IIT-B start-up Company called Mobiance Technologies. After that, he joined Reliance BIG Entertainment as a Deputy Manager Technology, where he worked for a couple of years. This sums up Ritesh as an experienced professional in mobile & web Development, Search Engine Development & Location Based Services application domains.
Martin Chauhan, Business Development: Martin is an experienced strategist who works on expanding existing customer sales, brand evolution & media endorsements. He is an Electronics & Communication Engineer from Nirma University, and a MBA - Marketing from BK School of Business Management. He has worked for Nokia Seimens Networks, TCS and Tata Docomo in various capacities.
Alpesh Oza, Technology Development: At iWillStudy.com, Alpesh takes care of the web based businesses. He leads the technology development and maintains the knowledge-intensive student professional network by maintaining students-professional relationship in multiple ways.
Chandrashekhar Sharma, Sales: Having worked with Club Mahindra with the sales department at various locations across Gujarat, Chandrashekhar is a perfect fit for the sales profile at iwillstudy.com.
Rajesh Jadi, Nishchal Sinha & Sulabh Gajjar, Android Developers: They work on different open source platforms such as Ubuntu, Android and Java.
Student Ambassadors – iwillstudy has more than 22 student co-ordinators who support them in managing the college events.
At present iWS is working on these fronts:
iWillStudy.com: A social portal for helping students in learning new technologies through online forums. Students can make a profile which works as an online resume wherein their contributions to the forums are highlighted. This provides the students with an opportunity to connect with recruiters. Industry professionals also contribute as guests to the forums and keep an eye on the student activities. Today, there are more than 1450 registered students on this portal.
Revenue Generation: Through advertisements.
iWS Events: Knowledge intensive technical seminars and workshops with more than 5000 participants from more than 50 colleges from Gujarat and Maharashtra. These events are attended by industry experts from various organizations such as Red Hat, Reliance, Nokia, IIT Bombay and eInfochips. An average of 120 participants attend these events. Our core area of making this successful is the nature of content and the kind of speakers we bring-in every time.
Revenue Generation: Through entry fees and by providing premium events at colleges.
iWS-Training & Placements: iWS provides training to numerous students on various technologies by tying up with multiple trainers & placement partners.
Revenue Generation: Fees for the training program and placement support.
Marketing is managed through both modes, offline and online: Event posters through student ambassadors at various colleges, Newspaper Advertisements, Brochures & Pamphlets and social media platforms such as Facebook & Twitter, Email and SMS campaigns.
In Gujarat iWS has already covered four cities by organizing events throughout the year. The Ahmedabad center had crossed the break-even point last September, and is now generating higher revenue. Plans are on for setting up similar centers at Pune, Indore & Kota by Apr’2013. Like most startups, iWS is also facing financial crunches for scaling beyond their current reach and they seek funding for achieving a sustainable level.
iWS is attempting to expand its reach by including b-schools and getting experts from more colleges to interact at their events. iWS has an Android App for the students of Gujarat Technological University.
You can reach them at: iwillstudy and look for more such startups at: EduStars
