Pallavi Bajaj: Digital Transformation Of Education Is Not About Technology; It Is About People; It Is An Adoption Challenge
Pallavi Bajaj
Director
An alumna of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, the World Trade Institute, Switzerland, as well as Lady Shri Ram College for Women, Delhi University, her education contributed immeasurably to who she is today; not only academically, but also for her seminal thinking on the role and relevance of digital platforms in sustainable development. As an extension of this larger role, at Ballistic Learning, she drives digital transformation in K12, higher education, skilling and workplace learning with open architecture, modular, scalable solutions, and people transformation frameworks.
Engaging in an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights, Pallavi highlights her journey as an adherent industry stalwart who has introduced some revolutionary insights to boost the presence of Ballistic Learning across the e-learning segment.
1. How has been your journey so far? What were the major challenges that you encountered during your journey till date?
Design and implementation of digital learning solutions never has a dull day at work. Always looking for ways to add value to every new project, and design custom fit solutions for specific needs of education and workplaces, at Ballistic Learning, we create customer specific solutions, by cherry picking the best practices from the Ballistic Basket of nuggets of experience garnered over close to two decades and more than 300 projects in open-source education technologies.
For me, without a doubt, the key challenge in digital transformation is the quintessential ‘adoption challenge’. While for some time technologies have been disrupting education, skilling and workplace learning, the pandemic has fast tracked use of digital platforms and spurred adoption of digital learning. In this rapidly shifting ground, we help clients make informed choices between open source and proprietary solutions, as the universe of open source offers endless opportunities for custom fit, scalable and robust solutions, at lower total costs (TCO). We advise clients to use Ballistic to overcome the adoption challenge.
2. Having experience in business process risk analysis and management consulting with managing business development, operations, client relations, and delivery on projects for clients in both the education, as well as in the corporate space, how are you leveraging the best of these elements across your company?
Effective solutions in the digitally enabled education and skilling space are critically dependent on three things - compliance with the widening web of data security and digital economy regulations;
designing workplaces for remote work, that factor in new kind of ‘distance’ workers in the gig economy; and designing education and skill ecosystems that offer employable skills, and all this while upskilling, and reskilling our own teams. In each of these areas, my continued work with trade policy and regulation, in particular in the digital trade in services space, and my experience in business process risk analysis has been an incredible value add as a digital entrepreneur.
3. What has been the major driving force behind the success of Ballistic Learning?
Our team is our greatest strength and working with them to drive digital transformation of education in India is the mission at Ballistic Learning. In this, we are fortunate to be guided by Mr. R. K. Bajaj, our Chairman, who brings to the table over 30 years of groundbreaking experience with Indian Revenue Service of technology driven tax reforms at the Indian Income Tax department. The revamping of the Indian PAN system, under his watch, has inspired several tax administrations across the globe. The Ballistic vision of digital transformation of education, skilling and workplace learning is driven by his experience, and made possible through unwavering dedication of our team. To me, working with Mr. Bajaj and our team on digital transformation of education, skilling and workplace learning in India is most rewarding, and something I look forward to every day.
4. Bridging the gap between the traditional classroom training and the perceived deficiencies of online training, what is your vision, mission and inspiration behind the operations of Ballistic learning? How do you seek to revolutionize the present-day E-learning educational framework?
Digital transformation of education and skilling mandates shift from ‘teaching’ to ‘learning’ and ‘textbooks’ to interactive, multilingual digital content. Such transformation of education is a multi-layered ‘adoption challenge’, compounded by the ‘suddenness' of disruption of education across the globe. Like any other transformation, the key to success is an inside out transformation roadmap, driven by leadership in collaboration with all stakeholders invested in it. At Ballistic Learning, we advocate open-source education technology for scalable, sustainable, and future-proof, digital learning ecosystems and we support ‘people transformation’.
5. Who do you look up to for inspiration or mentorship? What are the most important attributes of successful education leaders today?
My inspiration is the school girl in rural India, who has a device, perhaps even a smart mobile, but no learning content. While the inadequate availability of digital infrastructure in rural India is huge, to me the mountain that we should climb is the lack of quality digital learning content. Along with it comes the scalable, robust education solutions that can not only remotely deliver high-quality content from the best teachers and trainers to that girl child, to allow her to fulfill her dream.
Making it worth it for all stakeholders who are involved in bridging the digital divide, leaders in the education space need to do what it takes to speed up the implementation of One Nation One Digital Platform.
6. What is the sustainable change that you are bringing to the E-learning platform as a leader? As
3. What has been the major driving force behind the success of Ballistic Learning?
Our team is our greatest strength and working with them to drive digital transformation of education in India is the mission at Ballistic Learning. In this, we are fortunate to be guided by Mr. R. K. Bajaj, our Chairman, who brings to the table over 30 years of groundbreaking experience with Indian Revenue Service of technology driven tax reforms at the Indian Income Tax department. The revamping of the Indian PAN system, under his watch, has inspired several tax administrations across the globe. The Ballistic vision of digital transformation of education, skilling and workplace learning is driven by his experience, and made possible through unwavering dedication of our team. To me, working with Mr. Bajaj and our team on digital transformation of education, skilling and workplace learning in India is most rewarding, and something I look forward to every day.
Leaders in the education space need to do what it takes to speed up the effective implementation of one nation one digital platform
4. Bridging the gap between the traditional classroom training and the perceived deficiencies of online training, what is your vision, mission and inspiration behind the operations of Ballistic learning? How do you seek to revolutionize the present-day E-learning educational framework?
Digital transformation of education and skilling mandates shift from ‘teaching’ to ‘learning’ and ‘textbooks’ to interactive, multilingual digital content. Such transformation of education is a multi-layered ‘adoption challenge’, compounded by the ‘suddenness' of disruption of education across the globe. Like any other transformation, the key to success is an inside out transformation roadmap, driven by leadership in collaboration with all stakeholders invested in it. At Ballistic Learning, we advocate open-source education technology for scalable, sustainable, and future-proof, digital learning ecosystems and we support ‘people transformation’.
5. Who do you look up to for inspiration or mentorship? What are the most important attributes of successful education leaders today?
My inspiration is the school girl in rural India, who has a device, perhaps even a smart mobile, but no learning content. While the inadequate availability of digital infrastructure in rural India is huge, to me the mountain that we should climb is the lack of quality digital learning content. Along with it comes the scalable, robust education solutions that can not only remotely deliver high-quality content from the best teachers and trainers to that girl child, to allow her to fulfill her dream.
Making it worth it for all stakeholders who are involved in bridging the digital divide, leaders in the education space need to do what it takes to speed up the implementation of One Nation One Digital Platform.
6. What is the sustainable change that you are bringing to the E-learning platform as a leader? As
a Director of Ballistic learning, what strategies are you devising to make a much stronger position in the E-learning industry?
At Ballistic Learning, we walk the talk with the client, innovate with them, design solutions in collaboration with them, and built to their specific requirements. Not only do we facilitate training for teachers and students to learn the use of digital platforms for teaching and learning, but we handhold them as they try to migrate from ‘textbooks’ to ‘digital content’, by sharing global best practices from the world of digital learning.
We engage with our stakeholders directly and work with them collaboratively. Our end consumer is always who we design solutions for, and that last little girl child in rural India, who is yet to receive education, is always on our mind. Everything we do in between is to make the system work for these three entities. Above all, training the stakeholders at each level on using and adopting technology is critical.
7. What do you think is the best part of being a woman in the E-learning industry?
I think the best part of being a woman in any professional capacity today is that women are supporting women at the workplace, and therefore, women are collectively realizing their worth, and are unafraid to have their voices heard and their merit recognized independently of gender. What is most encouraging though, is being surrounded by male colleagues who are increasingly looking at their colleagues from a gender-neutral perspective, and yet consciously and conscientiously supporting women as they redefine being a woman at work, both at the office and back at home, respecting them for what they bring to the table, not bringing them to the table only because they are women and never looking beyond that. It is up to both men and women to collectively arrive at that change, and where I am looking at it from, I think that is currently work in progress, and that is very positive, as a woman in business
8. Do you have any advices/suggestions on your mind for the budding leaders in the education segment?
My advice to budding leaders in the education technologies is to ‘go for the jugular’. The pandemic has done the ‘selling’ for us, as it were. Education is a great social equalizer and transforms life and livelihoods by opening up diverse options. Opensource education technologies, hosted on cloud allow for standardized, sustainable and scalable delivery of high-quality education to reach the absolute lastmile. Combine it with emerging new technologies such as AI, machine learning, machine translation and so on, to deliver best of education and skilling to that last girlchild, anywhere in the world.
Pallavi Bajaj, Director, Ballistic Learning
An entrepreneur enabling digital disruption with Ballistic Learning, and a distinguished expert and advisor on international trade policy with various international organisations, government, and chambers of commerce, Pallavi Bajaj has spent over a decade adding value to the policy space at the intersection of trade and technology, with a balance between economics and regulation, and in parallel, fostering digital transformation, delivering high-end, innovative, custom e-learning solutions for academia, public sector, and industry alike.
She has delivered her expertise on trade policy as a speaker and panelist at various global fora on digital transformation, trade policy and regulation, the trade policy for the digital economy. Proudly wearing these multiple hats in trade policy advisory and digital learning, Pallavi is also an awardee of the World Super Achiever Award bestowed at the 7th World Women Leadership Congress and Awards 2020.
At Ballistic Learning, we walk the talk with the client, innovate with them, design solutions in collaboration with them, and built to their specific requirements. Not only do we facilitate training for teachers and students to learn the use of digital platforms for teaching and learning, but we handhold them as they try to migrate from ‘textbooks’ to ‘digital content’, by sharing global best practices from the world of digital learning.
We engage with our stakeholders directly and work with them collaboratively. Our end consumer is always who we design solutions for, and that last little girl child in rural India, who is yet to receive education, is always on our mind. Everything we do in between is to make the system work for these three entities. Above all, training the stakeholders at each level on using and adopting technology is critical.
7. What do you think is the best part of being a woman in the E-learning industry?
I think the best part of being a woman in any professional capacity today is that women are supporting women at the workplace, and therefore, women are collectively realizing their worth, and are unafraid to have their voices heard and their merit recognized independently of gender. What is most encouraging though, is being surrounded by male colleagues who are increasingly looking at their colleagues from a gender-neutral perspective, and yet consciously and conscientiously supporting women as they redefine being a woman at work, both at the office and back at home, respecting them for what they bring to the table, not bringing them to the table only because they are women and never looking beyond that. It is up to both men and women to collectively arrive at that change, and where I am looking at it from, I think that is currently work in progress, and that is very positive, as a woman in business
8. Do you have any advices/suggestions on your mind for the budding leaders in the education segment?
My advice to budding leaders in the education technologies is to ‘go for the jugular’. The pandemic has done the ‘selling’ for us, as it were. Education is a great social equalizer and transforms life and livelihoods by opening up diverse options. Opensource education technologies, hosted on cloud allow for standardized, sustainable and scalable delivery of high-quality education to reach the absolute lastmile. Combine it with emerging new technologies such as AI, machine learning, machine translation and so on, to deliver best of education and skilling to that last girlchild, anywhere in the world.
Pallavi Bajaj, Director, Ballistic Learning
An entrepreneur enabling digital disruption with Ballistic Learning, and a distinguished expert and advisor on international trade policy with various international organisations, government, and chambers of commerce, Pallavi Bajaj has spent over a decade adding value to the policy space at the intersection of trade and technology, with a balance between economics and regulation, and in parallel, fostering digital transformation, delivering high-end, innovative, custom e-learning solutions for academia, public sector, and industry alike.
She has delivered her expertise on trade policy as a speaker and panelist at various global fora on digital transformation, trade policy and regulation, the trade policy for the digital economy. Proudly wearing these multiple hats in trade policy advisory and digital learning, Pallavi is also an awardee of the World Super Achiever Award bestowed at the 7th World Women Leadership Congress and Awards 2020.