After a long time, I decided to take an interview. Let me introduce Ankit Dhadda, the founder of GyanCentral which has started to become a common destination for many law students and law aspirants. GyanCentral also caters to engineering students and covers news with respect to law schools, IITs and other engineering colleges. Ankit has ambitious plans with respect to GyanCentral (GC). He regularly interacts with law students and aspirants – so I quizzed him a bit on that. Let me know what you guys think of this interview.
Lets talk to Ankit.
Q. Please tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you from and what did you study? Did you work anywhere before starting Gyancentral?
Being born and bought up in Mumbai, I had a lot of career options to choose from. I was always interested in technology and advertising. After doing my bachelors in management, I followed the routine path of pursuing a MBA degree. Fortunately for me I did not indulge in academic learning and concentrated on traveling to different cities and participating in various competitions. After passing out of NMIMS, I worked in an seed/angel investment company as an entrepreneur in residence and thus GyanCentral was born.
Being born and bought up in Mumbai, I had a lot of career options to choose from. I was always interested in technology and advertising. After doing my bachelors in management, I followed the routine path of pursuing a MBA degree. Fortunately for me I did not indulge in academic learning and concentrated on traveling to different cities and participating in various competitions. After passing out of NMIMS, I worked in an seed/angel investment company as an entrepreneur in residence and thus GyanCentral was born.
Q. How did
you decide to become an entrepreneur? How did you think of starting GC?
I was on the
investment side of business when I saw a huge opportunity in education
information and products and hence decided to take the plunge. Investing in
startups gave me a perspective of how to go about starting a company but my
non-technical background was a big handicap. In the past year, I have focused
on learning technology (though I still can't code) and that has helped me leaps
and bounds in providing better value to users.
Q. If you are
ok to disclose, what are your future plans for law students as far as GC is
concerned? What is the gap you are trying to address?
The gap that we
seek to address is available as information and tools for law students and
aspirants. We focus a lot on editorial content and stories. We were the first
ones to address the issue of CLAT
2012 paper concerns for students by interviewing the convener and called for
collective action. We also covered every law entrance exam in detail.
Apart from
content, we have also developed an online platform for students to give free
online tests called TestCentral.
The purpose is to help students who do not go for coaching classes and augment
practice for those who have the luxury of training institutes.
We are also
developing video tutorials for law aspirants and students and have a CLAT
mentorship program underway for students on the forums.
Our aim is to
serve students.
Q. Will you
ever hire law students for working with Gyancentral? How do you think they can
help Gyancentral’s initiative if they want to contribute?
We started just
a year ago, hence we have not actively hired law students. However, in the
coming months we are looking to hire law students and interns. We want law
students who are passionate about legal education in India and want to
contribute towards improving it. The ways in which a law student can associate
with GyanCentral are:
1. Work on
creating a community which ensures that information is available to law
students and aspirants. Create a community which can serve their needs.
2. Work on our
existing products like TestCentral
and give an awesome experience to law students.
3. Work on new
initiatives like creating digital content for law students or simplifying law school
rankings for aspirants.
Any law student
interested can get in touch with Ankit - ankit@gyancentral.com
Q. Do you
hire law interns?
We have hired
interns from the IITs but not from law schools yet. But we do plan to in the
coming academic year.
Q. How did
you deal with legal issues for your company?
We were
fortunate in that aspect. Our investors have a strong legal team comprising of
lawyers and company secretaries who helped in company formation. As far as web
copyrights, etc. was involved, it was a gradual learning process.
Currently we are
rolling out ESOPs for employees and have taken external and internal help for
it.
Q. Do you
think law students should start blogging? How can they start writing and what
can they write on in your opinion?
I am quite
surprised that very few law students are on twitter or are actively blogging,
and they have a plethora of topics that they can write on. I believe they can
do three steps – first, get off Facebook because that’s where I find majority
of the national law school students; Second, stop complaining that they have a
tight schedule because everyone does and third, start writing - religiously one
blogspot every day on any topic which interests them. Using platforms like
blogger or wordpress should not be a technology related challenge.
Q. How do
non-lawyers perceive lawyers these days? Has there been any change in recent
times?
For the layman,
a lawyer is still Sunny Deol shouting over the top of his lungs in Damini. In reality, however, lawyers
today don't have litigation as the only alternative and have a host of career
options (legal journalism, copyright expert, legal advisor in corporate sector,
etc.) to choose from. However, a lot of old school people do believe that lawyers
are only interested in consulting jobs that pay a lot and have no interest in
acquiring practical knowledge. I believe that law is a profession which is
still maturing in India and will get more lucrative in the coming years.
this was a fab intro with Ankit sir..!!
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