Levelling The Playing Field: Role Of GUVI’s CXOs To Empower Indian Youth From Tier-2 & Tier-3 Cities

India is best defined as the embodiment of unity in diversity. This country boasts thousands of languages, dialects and diverse communities defined by their distinctive culture, linguistic preferences and other factors. But in today’s technologically driven world, talent trumps social identities, and India struggles to embody it to the fullest. Having a significant grasp of the dominant languages is considered critical for excellence in a professional capacity, and talents from tier-2 and tier-3 cities are struggling to adopt this mindset.

GUVI exists to bridge this gap with strategic interventions through vernacular language-driven technological training. Driven by the industry veterans turned CXOs, the mantra at GUVI remains simple yet effective — linguistic barriers limit talented youth from participating in the workforce, and the sole objective is to empower them through the strategic use of vernacular languages to make them industry-ready.

Learners from tier-2 and tier-3 Indian cities lack industry exposure, and many of them are unable to converse in dominant languages like English. This gap was one of the contributing factors that led to the establishment of GUVI in 2014 by Mr. Arun Prakash, an industry veteran himself who hails from a tier-2 city. As the IIT-M incubated EdTech giant celebrates its 10th anniversary, its scalability can be attributed to the tireless and meaningful contributions of its CXOs who climbed to the top echelon of India’s business domain by turning it into a 150 crore worth company.

The innovative course modules offered by GUVI focus on diverse new-age technologies to empower students with critical industry exposure through cutting-edge curricula and productive mentorship; This transformation has been made possible with the strategic interventions of key leadership figures inside the boardroom.

The vision & contributions of CXOs

When Mr. Arun Prakash, a tech industry veteran launched GUVI, then a YouTube channel, as an IIT-M incubated company in 2014 with his wife Mrs. Sri Devi and Mr. Balamurugan SP, the objective was simple. They looked to empower learners from tier-2 and tier-3 cities with technological skills and industry exposure by emphasising vernacular languages. In the subsequent years, they integrated their vast industry experience with innovative curricula, while maintaining an interactive outlook with prospective learners concerning their requirements. This strategic measure aimed to bridge the skill gap of Indian learners proficient in vernacular languages through their strengths, rather than the other way around. This led them to garner resounding popularity, overwhelming the founders and leading them to scale GUVI’s operations.

In addition to the founders, other critical enablers of GUVI’s meteoric rise have been its CXOs — Mr. Muruganantham Punniyamoorthy (CTO), Ms. Anitha Sathish (COO) and Mr. Vasanth Vijayabaskar (CSO). Their ability to streamline the company’s processes through targeted initiatives, teamwork and supplementing broader vision allowed the boardroom to adopt a transformative initiative focused on a national scale. To understand the skill gaps, existing concerns and requirements — the top leadership adopted a proactive approach, making public appearances, delivering speeches and undertaking general discussions with prospective learners in colleges, universities, hackathons and even on social media. These effective community-building measures promptly struck a chord with learners from diverse backgrounds and linguistic communities, who decided to complement their confidence and unwavering faith by enrolling in GUVI’s cutting-edge technological courses.

The resulting success was astounding, as GUVI now takes pride in announcing that it has trained over 30 lakh students across India through innovative vernacular-language-driven tech curriculums in numerous disciplines, contributing effectively to India’s economic progress in the 21st century.

We walk the talk

The vast majority of the members of GUVI’s leadership teams come from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. For example, the Founder & CEO, Mr. Arun Prakash comes from a small town near Madurai named Usilampatti. Similarly, Mr. Muruganantham Punniyamoorthy (CTO) hails from Thanjavur, Ms. Anitha Sathish (COO) comes from Theni and Mr. Vasanth Vijayabaskar (CSO)’s origin lies in Mannarkudi. This allows them to interpret the growing emphasis on technological education in tier-2 and tier-3 Indian cities, while also deciphering the existing challenges faced by prospective learners in these geographies. Under the leadership of these CXOs, GUVI has identified key markets consisting of distinct linguistic communities that are proficient in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Hindi and others. Presently, their undivided attention is focusing on identifying key global markets in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South America and elsewhere, where strategic interventions can lead to a broader economic contribution.

A unique feature that has allowed GUVI to align itself with prospective learners is the fact that the vast majority of its leadership team hails from tier-2 and tier-3 cities themselves. This enables them to understand the underlying issues and challenges prospective learners face, especially concerning their inability to converse in dominant languages. GUVI promises to empower individuals globally through affordable and accessible upskilling solutions that bypass linguistic barriers. Implementing passion, teamwork, creativity and simplicity with innovation and technology has enabled the company to offer state-of-the-art democratized knowledge in vernacular languages. These visions have been orchestrated and implemented through careful guidance by members of the leadership team, who have worked tirelessly over the years to engineer a narrative transformation, opening up a new horizon for prospective new-age tech learners.

The careful considerations by the CXOs have resulted in GUVI training 30 lakhs+ learners, deploying 194 industry veterans as mentors, 3 Crore+ lines of code submissions and 1600+ informative videos in the last decade. Their futuristic initiatives have also resulted in improved learning experiences, as 72% of all students are now capable of completing their respective courses under 3 months, 78% of learners recollecting the concepts faster than their conventionally trained peers, and a staggering 84% have an improved understanding of complex topics. This resounding success embodies the special emphasis of the CXOs on promoting vernacular languages in tech education, leading to professional excellence.

Future outlook

Motivated by the strategic initiatives and interventions of its CXOs, GUVI is aligning its future with the development goals of India. As the country rapidly modernises itself to become a developed country by 2047, GUVI is focusing on playing a critical role in contributing to this development. Its innovative vernacular language-driven approach has found suitors with several premier universities and state governments, and this collaboration has been made possible by the CXOs. GUVI is aiming to establish a sustainable pipeline of trained professionals on the national stage, whose contributions will be significant to take India forward into a better tomorrow. The company has adopted the role of being a critical enabler of India’s large community of youth, integrating them into India’s workforce and helping them with valuable industry exposure so they can become tomorrow’s changemakers. This growth mindset is not limited to the national borders, as GUVI’s inclusivity is set to extend to key geographies internationally; Creating a worldwide community of talented youth, a legacy that will transform tomorrow’s world into a thriving utopia.