Mindler acquires Immrse
New Delhi, November 16. Delhi-based edtech startup Mindler, a career guidance platform for students and educators, announced acquisition of Immrse, a virtual career internship and simulation platform, in a cash and stock deal. Mindler expects to close the acquisition within three months.

Promoted by Pratham Sutaria, an alumnus of Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, the Immrse platform enables students to access career internships virtually through experiential, immersive and self-paced discovery programmes. Virtual career internships allow students to deep dive into conventional and new age careers such as engineering, medicine, film-making, graphic design, law, psychology, ethical hacking etc. 

Immrse has already signed up 10,000 class VIII-XII students and has connected 100 counselors and edtech companies. Following this acquisition, Mindler will provide virtual career internships via schools/institutions, career counselors and edtech partners.

“We are ready to tap the amazing opportunities which open up with this collaboration agreement. As the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is being rolled out, career guidance will become very important. We are strongly positioned to deliver personalised career guidance solutions to students and aid their overall development through integrated co-curricular solutions — a key mandate of NEP 2020,” said Prateek Bhargava, founder-CEO of Mindler, speaking on the occasion.

Podar Innovation Centre
Mumbai, November 2. The Podar Innovation Centre, which guides and supports all Podar Education Network schools through innovative resources, teacher development programmes, and school review processes, has designed ‘Evolve,’ an online self-driven professional learning programme for school teachers and leaders.

“Evolve aims to foster a culture of professionalism in schools where learning is self-driven and focused on self-growth and peer growth of teachers, for overall change. Evolve differs from standard professional development programmes as it is student-teacher driven and self-paced rather than trainer-led. It involves activities including research, debate and knowledge and experience sharing within peer groups. Hence, it’s a ‘professional learning’ not ‘professional development’ programme,” explains Renee Bijlani, director of the centre.

With over 94 years of experience within the educational space, the Podar Education Network comprises 136 education institutions countrywide with a combined enrolment of 165,000 students and 7,600 teachers.

JGU-UTCS concordat
New Delhi, November 17. The Directorate of Training (UTCS), Delhi Government has signed an MoU with O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), Sonipat, Haryana, under which JGU will provide academic training, knowledge and capacity building services to officers of the Delhi state government.

“Through this partnership, our officers will be able to augment their skills and get new qualifications which will enable them to transform into exceptional public servants of the future,” said Vijay Kumar Dev, chief secretary of the Delhi government.

Added Prof. (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, founding vice chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University (estb.2009): “Since 2009, JGU has endeavoured to establish the best learning programmes, partnerships, research and qualification systems. This MoU is a step towards upskilling the capabilities of our public servants who are changemakers in governance and polity. Our internationally and nationally qualified faculty and pedagogy is peerless and we are honoured to partner with the government of Delhi.”

Screwvala-21K deal
Bengaluru, November 29. 21K School — India’s first wholly online school — has raised funding of $5 million (Rs.37 crore) from Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairman of upGrad.

21K School was founded in 2020 by Santosh Kumar, Yeshwanth Raj Parasmal, Dinesh Kumar and Joshi Kumar to create a 100 percent online school offering children aged 3-18 years a choice of three — Indian, American and British — curriculums.

“The future of education is here, and it’s changing the way we think about schooling. 21K School will offer great value to students with interactive technologies that engage learners at every level of development,” said Screwvala, speaking on the occasion.

Added Santosh Kumar, co-founder & CEO of 21K School: “21K School offers equal opportunity and access to millions of students in India and around the world. The investment by Ronnie will help us reach out to over 18 million Indians living abroad providing them opportunity to study the increasingly popular Indian curriculum while they live overseas.”