If students are not taught AI now, there will be a social revolution in future: Aditya Malhotra, founding partner, Alphadynamic
Starting something on our own can be a very challenging but rewarding task. With the ed-tech space booming at the moment and seeing massive investments pouring in, being in ed-tech seems really the place to be. But due to the popularity of this sector right now, we see intense competition among companies to stand out. One can only separate itself from the crowd in the education space through authentic content and the value they provide to the students. Today we look at the entrepreneurial journey of Aditya Malhotra, founding partner at Alphadynamic, a company that imparts AI education to schoolchildren to make them ready for future job roles. By now, we all know that the rapid adoption of automation, AI and other newer tech will reduce various kinds of jobs that are repetitive or labour intensive. But it will also create newer types of jobs in the future. Governments and policymakers have to understand that in order to make children ready for adapting to the future of work, they have to learn the foundational aspects of it–critical thinking and an analytical approach to problems at the school level itself. Passion for educating people in new technology Malhotra says, “It was a personal discovery for me as I was always interested in educating people in new technology and new skills. I always wanted to build something of my own as well.” But Malhotra has had a long career in the corporate space before taking a plunge at entrepreneurship. A chemical engineer by profession, he used to start refineries in different countries. He has worked in oil majors such as CNPC in China, YPF in Argentina, Sibur in Russia, SABIC in Saudi Arabia, among others. He was implementing process control and automation projects in these places. Then, he went for his MBA at IIM-Ahmedabad and joined Honeywell as a strategic marketing specialist. Malhotra adds, “I’m a technologist at heart and wanted people to be more aware of the newer technologies. We see that in India, even after graduating and getting degrees from good colleges, students are not able to bag proper jobs. The foundation of all of this happens at the school level. More than 80 per cent of the brain is developed when we graduate high school. To think about problems and analyse how to solve problems is missing in our education system. There is a complete mismatch between the skills required in the new world and the curriculum taught in schools and colleges.” Malhotra feels that even if someone is teaching AI, the way it is taught matters the most. Often, it is very academic and theoretical. He wanted to bring something more practical out there, which students can build their thinking on. Making students ready for the digital era The fundamental mission of Alphadynamic is to make students ready for the digital era. In the beginning, the students are benchmarked on the proprietary Alphadynamic AI Index. Once their interaction levels with possible combinations are identified, students will be classified as – an AI builder, AI Planner or AI Superuser. Then, a personalised quality learning plan is designed for the students to build skills that will help them excel in their education and subsequent career. Video: Alphadynamic It does not matter if the school student comes from a commerce or arts background without any prior technical knowledge. The programs will cover the foundations of AI and provide real-world examples, AI principles, AI project cycle as well as Python language to create applications. Malhotra says, “Skills that are learnt and then used to build something matter in the long run. Not only does a business need an entrepreneurial mindset, even when in school, it is needed to solve various problems one may encounter. Through this endeavour, we want to change the fundamental shift in the way students think. AI education is so foundational that it helps build other things after understanding its concepts. It also helps grasp other subjects easily and can make students excel in them as well.” Born out of the pandemic in 2020, it was not easy to venture out and build something from scratch for Malhotra. Mainly, he encountered two big challenges. Finding the right tech team was a big challenge Malhotra says that the biggest challenge for him while building Alphadynamic was not being able to find the right tech team. People often say the biggest hurdle is funding, but for him, that was not the case. It was tough to make the people in the tech team work together and in sync. We all know that the pandemic has accelerated the demand for people in tech. Malhotra adds, “I realised that we need people from all over the country to build the best team, and if I’m just focusing on local hiring, talent sourcing will not happen. So, the agenda has been to hire people from anywhere without depending on local talent.” Shift in the mentality of parents to consume online content India is still lagging behind in adopting the right coaching in tech. The challenge Malhotra experienced from the customer’s side is that parents were concerned about the increase in screen time (a justifiable concern), but once they were shown how they could access the best teachers through the online mode, that issue was solved. Never be rigid “The biggest advice I would give to a budding entrepreneur is – never be rigid. One should fail fast and learn fast. That will help one survive in the market. One should work on the ideas, get them out in the market, see if it works or not. If it does not, iterate on it and build it again. But in the process, never come down on the motivation and perseverance, says Malhotra. We can see a social revolution in the future The nature of work is changing, and if students are not taught the skills that are needed to survive in the future, there will be a social revolution. Malhotra says, “The NEP policy was introduced in 2020. Till now, there is no mandate to implement this policy. At least they should have been implemented in government schools by now. I can understand the private sector not stepping up (facing a crunch of resources, difficult to train principals), but why are government schools not getting what is promised? Teaching students tech like AI has to be implemented on a war scale, and I do not see that happening. It is harming students immensely and killing their future, and that has to change immediately.” AI landscape in the future Malhotra is very bullish on the AI landscape, which is evolving globally. It is a silent revolution that is taking place—people won’t know how their lives will be completely transformed by AI in the next five years.Malhotra concludes, “India is nowhere close to the top five countries in research in this field. If you look at startups in the AI/ML field, it is minuscule compared to the global numbers. Unless something drastically changes in the attitude of people, it will be difficult for India to become a global leader in AI technology.”
We look at the journey of Aditya Malhotra, founder-partner at Alphadynamic, in building a startup focused on imparting AI education to school kids.
We look at the journey of Aditya Malhotra, founder-partner at Alphadynamic, in building a startup focused on imparting AI education to school kids.
["AI (Artificial Intelligence)", "entrepreneurship", "Interviews and Discussions", "journey", "Machine Learning"]
["Go", "API", "funding", "startup", "AI", "ML", "Machine Learning", "Git", "journey", "Python", "automation", "entrepreneurship", "R", "AI (Artificial Intelligence)", "Interviews and Discussions"]
["AI", "ML", "Python", "R", "Go", "Git", "API", "automation", "startup", "funding"]
I am a technology journalist at AIM. What gets me excited is deep-diving into new-age technologies and analysing how they impact us for the greater good.

Reach me at sreejani.bhattacharyya@analyticsindiamag.com