Exclusive Interview Of Rishi Khemka, Founder and CEO, MindBox India

Founded in 2013 by Rishi Khemka with ICT Program (B2B Model) for Schools, MindBox was established with a vision to create personalised learning journey for every 6-18 years old students in India and across the globe.

The organisation strives to build functional literacy in students and empowers them with the 21st Century skills. It has a dynamic curriculum, designed, and customized for CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE, IB and all state boards. The organisation offers personalised technology lifecycle, including fundamental, coding and design courses to K12 students from all over the globe. Since its inception, MindBox has been able to build a community of 35000+ students and serve 50+ schools from more than 20 countries and look forward to empowering 1,00,000+ students and serving 150+ schools from more than 30 countries by the end of the year.

It is India’s first STEM Accredited organisation dedicated towards teaching professional design and code learning tools/software to students of the age group 6-18 years. Unlike the rest of the industry players, It’s the only organization teaching professional software/tools to school students like Maya, unity, Kodular, blender, G-develop, photoshop, SketchUp, etc.

We are delighted to introduce you to Mr Rishi Khemka, one of India’s most inspiring and motivating entrepreneurs, he founded India’s leading stem-approved organization, MindBox. Using Design Thinking, STREAM, and Skill Development Frameworks to develop a solution mindset among students, MindBox provides Context-Based Experiential Learning and expands students’ Creative, Digital, and Life Skills.
MindBox was founded with the vision of creating a personalized learning journey for every student aged 6-18 in India and around the world. As part of its mission, the organization aims to increase students’ functional literacy and prepare them for the 21st century.

Founded in 2013, MindBox has grown to empower 35000+ students and serve 50+ schools in more than 20 countries. By the end of the year, MindBox aim to empower 1,00,000+ students and serve 150+ schools in more than 30 countries. With MindBox’s ICT 2.0 Program, schools in India are implementing the NEP 2020 successfully – the next generation of the ICT curriculum. Using technology, real-world projects, and the Intensive Teacher Training Curriculum, the program aims to upskill educators and prepare students for future careers.

As Rishi strives to build Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude competencies in children, he expects not only to touch millions of lives but also to transform them. During this interview, Mr. Rishi discusses the philosophy behind MindBox, plans, the innovation mindset, challenges, and an amazing journey during the pandemic. Take a look at the interview to find out more about him and his company.

Inventiva: Looking at the growing demand for technology talent across the country, how will MindBox courses enable youngsters to gain the relevant skillsets required to thrive in the near future?

Rishi Khemka: In today’s VUCA world, technology has emerged as a game changer for those who have the adequate skillset that is required to work efficiently in this rapidly growing digital economy. With technology skillsets becoming more and more critical in today’s world, it’ll be essential for us to ensure that our future generation is well versed with how the entire framework of the digital world operates. As per recent industry estimates, the demand and supply gap for technology talent in India is poised to reach 14 to 19 lakh by 2026. 

Here at MindBox, we strive to bridge this gap by leveraging a student-centric approach which enables us to help them build skillsets across domains such as game & applications development, graphic designing, 3D & 2D animation, web designing, digital design, artificial intelligence (AI), etc to name a few. With the help of our personalized learning journey, we are able to foster creativity, innovation, clarity, and flexibility amongst the youngsters who are enrolled with us.

This in turn enables us to build functional literacy amongst the students and empower them with the 21st Century skillsets, a value that is poised to become a necessity in the future. 

Inventiva: Could you tell us something about your journey so far?

Rishi Khemka: My journey as an entrepreneur started back in 2012 with the inception of ARK Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd. However, the foundations of MindBox were laid back in 2013 following an intense session with my life coach around the quintessential question, “why empower & improve as many lives as possible”.

Based on my school experience and the overall scenario of Edtech in India, I realized that there was a dearth of knowledge and exposure to both fundamental programs as well as high-end professional software and languages. This motivated me to establish MindBox and ICT 360, which is a context-based experiential learning program.

With the advent of the Covid pandemic in 2020 and its overwhelming impact on the overall education scenario in India, we at MindBox rolled out our Direct to Home Learning Program that featured Instructor-led Online 1:1 Live Classes to kids across India and abroad in the areas of Design & Coding.

This further helped to increase our overall footprint across India and as of now, we have been able to expand our outreach to 100+ schools across India with over 60000+ students.

We also organize Design Championship; A pan India initiative through which we provide a platform for school students, age 6 to 16 years, to showcase their creativity and talent in App Design, Game Design, Graphic Design, 3D Design, Coding, Web Design and Movie Making.

Inventiva: Based on your experience so far, what are some of the new psychological trends that you’ve observed amongst youngsters?

Rishi Khemka: Over the past few years, the psyche of youngsters especially in India has evolved rapidly. With the growing awareness around new age technologies, the children are starting to realize the significance of developing skillsets across new age technologies in order to ensure their growth in the future. The majority of youngsters these days consider practical learning as the most essential attribute for job and career success. 

Inventiva: As we move towards the post-pandemic era, what changes do you foresee within the edtech ecosystem especially looking at the fact that we might be reverting to the traditional education model? 

Rishi Khemka: While the Covid pandemic led to an unprecedented boost across the Indian edtech ecosystem, the post-pandemic era would mark the emergence of a more hybrid learning ecosystem which would enable students to have access to the best from both these realms. Just like every other industry, the omnichannel model of offline and online is poised to steer India’s edtech scenario to greater heights.  

Apart from this, the significance of personalized and immersive learning experiences is also poised to grow exponentially in the coming years as nowadays more and more kids want access to skillsets across new age technologies but at the same time, every child has his or her own pace of learning and this is where personalized and immersive learning experiences are expected to play a critical role. 

With schools slowly moving toward the post-pandemic era, the inclusion of Blended Learning / Hybrid Learning / Online Learning / Personalized Learning is expected to gain momentum. India’s edtech industry is poised to remain an interesting market owing to its ability to focus on individual child’s strengths by leveraging personalized learning paths.

Inventiva: There is a lot of negativity and speculation around the edtech sector, especially around the companies that provide courses related to coding. What are your views on that and how MindBox is different from the rest of the industry players? 

Rishi Khemka: During the Covid pandemic, India’s edtech ecosystem was flushed with coding and design-led curriculums. But most of these modules lacked the ability to improve a child’s overall creativity. Copycat modules and lack of experiential learning are some of the key aspects that have led to this downfall.

What makes us different from the rest of the industry players is the fact that we consider ourselves to be TechEd platform as we strive to provide technology education that is we tend to educate kids on the concepts of technology which they can leverage in future. For us here at MindBox, providing a student-centric learning experience is key to each and every operation of ours. 

While most of the industry players focused their modules individually around coding, we made sure that our courses provided design-based programs that complete the whole cycle of design + coding. Being India’s first STEM Accredited organization, our key ethos has always revolved around building a full-fledged personalized learning journey for every student, a journey that covers the entire technology lifecycle including all the fundamental courses like coding & design. We are the only organization within the Indian edtech space that provides courses around professional software/tools such as Maya, Unity, Kodular, Blender, G-Develop, Photoshop, Sketchup etc to K-12 students.