As COVID19 seeped into the Indian skies and lockdown was announced in last week of March 2020, I felt a deep connect with final semester students waiting for placements and jobs.
The big question was – “How to save these young students and future executives from falling into clouds of uncertainty” and keep them hopeful and motivated during the unexpected world pandemic.
The Indian Education system was unprepared for this sudden catastrophe that hit the planet. And so were the industries. The schools, colleges and corporates were all amidst lockdown struggling to find ways.
Being a mom of similar age kid, and a former professor, I could sense their plight. So, I immediately felt the need to connect these students with higher education leaders and industry experts to create a bridge of information exchange. This would avoid the confusion and through talks new avenues of hopeful future would emerge, was the base intention. I designed and hosted a number of free webinars for them inviting several industry experts on panel.
“Idle mind is devil's workshop”
A proverb most dreadful in covid times
One of the ways to keep them engaged even during almost inactive lockdown periods was to somehow to keep them working on some activity. Hence, we organised the first online J.A.M session of India, which included more than 40 students from at least 5 nations. The students spoke their minds on self-reliance. The reputation of this heartfelt cause reached offshore too with participants joining from as many as 12 countries for HR skills webinars.
My experience with young college students in university was helping to connect and understand their wows. We also gave them e-certificates for participating in webinars so that it keeps them motivating.
The concept of online webinars soon became viral worldwide and, in the meantime, we felt need of reaching more and more such wannabe executives through other innovative means. This was seeding ground for the media publication of Business Strategy e-Magazine. We innovated this niche way of spreading knowledge to young future leaders.
On my request, several reputed industry experts and higher education veterans came forward to write organic articles for our readers. With their cooperation, we felt that the cause of inspiring youth is unanimously seamless and global and big hearts do want to help out in their own ways.
The first digital issue was launched in July 2020 and with perseverance and hard work we have managed to publish 14 issues till date, while 15th will be out by 3rd of September 2021. It was important to market the issue to make it available to a wider audience worldwide. The digital corporate magazine is listed on several world-renowned platforms like Amazon, Magzter, Issuu, Joomag, Medium etc. We launched a unique and dedicated website www.business-strategy.in in order to showcase the articles and stories online free for all. To date the audience belongs to as many as 40 nationalities and there is constant increase in the readership.
The content of the business magazine is niche - E - learning from real workplace experience of renowned experts. The writers belong to elite C-level professionals and professors, from Europe, USA, UAE, India, and other nations.
Couple of our elite C-Level professionals included Paolo Gallo (former CHRO, world bank & currently founder of campass and radar, Switzerland), Kjetil Sandermoen, (Chairman, University of Fredericton, Canada), Dave Ulrich,(Professor-University of Michigen,Renowned as Father of Modern HR), Fausto Turco (CEO of Si-Net, Italy), Alok Sheopurkar (VP, HDFC Mutual Fund India), George Kemish, HR Strategist, UK), Shereen Qutob, UAE, Dr. Neeta Pant, (Criminal Psychology, Hypnotherapist and ODL, India).
I was still not satisfied with the development in the area of inspiring youth through COVID19. I was missing something in the whole exercise. The live part was missing as we slowed down the process of webinars. There was a need of live practical learning from entrepreneurs and outliers themselves, about the real hurdles & challenges.
My motto was – ENGAGE, ENGAGE, and establish MORE of ENGAGEMENT between “Mentors & Learners”. And this gave birth to our unique product – BIZEMAG Podcast in April 2021.
We listed the @bizemag podcast on several highly ranked podcast platforms such as Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, Anchor, and soon it is now listed on more than a dozen podcast channels.
The response is immense from all over the globe. We recorded as many as 28 podcasts in first two months of launch, that is to say one every alternate day. The views for each webcast are no less than 100 to crossing 1k mark. It increased our YouTube channel @Lstrategyq by 6 times.
Our guest speakers range from Academy Award Nominee to Sports Psychologist, from Entrepreneur to Women Outliers, from Immigration Lawyer to a unique Artistic start up owner, from Book Writers to Cause Fighters, and many more.
The demography of location ranges from Americas, Canada, South Africa, India, Italy, Switzerland…the list is countless.
Our lesson is: Mentors want to train, and Learners want to gain
The focus on e-learning remained intact as we moved from M&A advisory to establishing a skill academy to a media company.
It is not an easy task to create a 3600 e-learning media company. But with perseverance and genuine interest, we were able to do so. The business is new and right now we are having 3 employees and lots of investments. The revenue model depends mainly on the sponsors and advertisers of the digital magazine and there is good response.
As I always say, “Going through challenges and yet come out smiling should be the motto! it is one life, make the most of it"