Issue date: 30th December, 2024
Turnip Innovations - Year in Review 2024
Lead Story by Dr. Rahul Kapoor
Turnip Innovations - Year in Review 2024
I want to wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year 2025!
I have written my thoughts on education, AI and Turnip's belief system in this post. There are 3 important viewpoints on education that will drive future developments at Turnip Innovations.
1. A wider view of education
No one can truly monopolise "education". It is a massive field. Learning happens all the time. When you talk to a friend, read a blog post, watch a YouTube short; we learn in unexpected places.
Hence, at Turnip we want to have a much wider view of education. Schools and colleges are not the only place to learn.
In fact, our biggest competitors are not other online education platforms, but social media giants like Meta and YouTube. Every online platform is vying for people's attention. Most people have an average 3-4 hours per day screen time on their mobile phones (upto 7 hours if you add all internet connected devices to the mix).
People choose what is the best use of those 7-8 hours of screen time as per their interests.
That is why I say social media and news are our biggest competitors since they take away a large chunk of peoples' screentime.
We at Turnip aim to produce learning that is deemed useful and worthy to claim a small share of this screentime. Currently, that's what we are doing. By sending courses conveniently via micro lessons, we are stealing a small share of scholars' screentime from other media companies.
We hope to find more useful and innovative ways to have people give us more of their screen time.
2. A commitment to life-long learning
At Turnip, we don't offer course bundles. We don't offer "The-ONLY-Course-you-will-ever-need" type of courses. People buy "All in One" courses because they feel they are getting a bargain. But such courses are not conducive to learning.
Too much content is the number one reason for low course completion rates. Imagine the feeling when you see a fat text book and already get discouraged about the subject.
We want to offer the right amount of content at the right time to the right person. There are people who have been on our mailing list for 5 years. They have done 10s of courses when they felt they were ready. They have stayed in touch via free live events.
Hence, we have removed any time pressure or deadlines for completing courses. There will always be something exciting and new in the future.
UGC guidelines also acknowledge lifelong learning. Learning is not what happens only during the confines of one single time bound degree program!
3. Actions and deeds
Is AI changing education?
Well of course it is.
When the printing press was invented in the 15th century, it revolutionised education. Creating copies of books and dissemination of knowledge became easier.
Similar changes were brought about by the advent of internet. Google, Wikipedia and other platforms revolutionised access to education.
With Large Language Models (LLMs), knowledge is literally being presented to scholars on a silver plate.
Has all these developments solved the problem of "skill development"? Why is the world still struggling with developing a "skilled" labour force?
The answer lies in our scriptures like the Bhagwad Gita. Actions (karma) and deeds form the integral part of learning, self-discovery and spiritual evolution.
We need to engage with the world around us rather than withdraw and only consume content. We can engage with the world via Nishkam Karma (selfless action without entitlement or attachment to its fruits).
All Turnip courses have hands-on components. This will never change and, if anything, we will find innovative ways to incorporate hands-on training within our courses.
We hope the above guidelines will drive our endeavours in the future. So it should for any educational institute in general!
Key developments in 2024.
We crossed 100,000 subscribers!
In September 2024, Turnip reached 1 lakh scholars who have taken our courses or attended our events. It took almost 4 years to reach this magical figure. This excludes many private webinars and offline events I have conducted.
Worth noting that this milestone was reached without any external funding. We are completely bootstrapped. With the right strategy and partners, I believe 10 lakh can be achieved in less than 4 years.
AICTE approves Turnip's Entrepreneurship Course
In November 2024, AICTE NEAT team sent us confirmation regarding "AICTE Evaluated" tag for our 16-Day Entrepreneurship Awareness Program.
The course covers key startup concepts in a highly convenient and practical way. The course has a graded quiz and comes with a professional certificate, course ebook and 100+ free startup resources. I am hoping academic institutes will wholeheartedly adopt the course as a MOOC certification, skill development or value added activity.
Official Course Page: turnip.co.in/entrepreneurship-course
Turnip @ India Mobile Congress 2024
Turnip was selected in the Aspire Startup Program at IMC 2024. We got the opportunity to showcase our offering in one of the world's biggest mobile, digital and startup conferences. The event was attended by a whopping 150,000 people at Bharat Mandapam, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
Day 1 saw Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji visit the startup area. India's who's who visited the conference. I was lucky to have met with Dr. Ajai Chowdhry and Ankur Warikoo after their motivating speeches!
More event pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/8MzPhGwvWSTxebCf8
Turnip Innovations video: https://youtu.be/tnI866TGThA
Turnip's vision @ IMC India Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NWjA8yy_lI
Turnip working with Qualcomm
Turnip is proud to start working with Qualcomm to promote the IPR ecosystem in India via the L2Pro platform: l2proindia.com
In 2025, Turnip will deepen collaboration with Qualcomm and help act as an industry-academia interface via several events and promotional programs.
Working with one of the world's top IP licensing and innovation firm has given us a big credibility boost.
NALSAR University felicitates Turnip Innovations
I want to say a big Thank You to Dr. Anindya Sircar, IPR Chair Professor at NALSAR University, Hyderabad, for inviting me and felicitating Turnip Innovations.
For the first time I shared my startup story, the acquisition of IPGRAM, and a trademark dispute between IPGRAM and Instagram with law scholars!
I thoroughly enjoyed the event.
Turnip working with Finnish research organisation VTT
This year I went to Finland after 5 years. If you don't know, I did my Master's and PhD studies from Finland between 2011 and 2017!
Turnip got a project to install and maintain a Global Patent Database in VTT's Azure platform. VTT is a Finland's, and one of the world's premier research to business organisations.
I had the opportunity to take a session at VTT to train their researchers on the potential use cases of patent data. With the adent of LLMs, use of patent data will find exciting new use-cases.
Turnip Innovation Festival 2025
I invite you to signup for Turnip Innovation Festival 2025.
The event theme is "Intellectual Property and Global Partnerships." We will have a stellar list of global leaders as speakers. All educational institutes, students, faculty, startups and professionals will have the opportunity to collaborate with global innovation stakeholders!
The event is sponsored by Qualcomm and all verified registrations can avail a free participation certificate upon filling the feedback form after the event.
Register Now: bit.ly/turnipinno-2025
Looking forward to 2025! :)
Quote of the Week
Alan Kay, Xerox PARC: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Important Updates
[Ongoing] Turnip Innovation Festival 2025 - Learn and collaborate with global IP leaders. 5th Edition of the Innovation Festival sponsored by Qualcomm: (Free registration)
[Ongoing] L2Pro Platform - Qualcomm and National Law University, Delhi have collaborated with CIPAM, DPIIT to provide a broad range of courses on Intellectual Property Rights: (Free registration)
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