How I made my first community from scratch and hosted the education giants?

A community in educational innovation changed my life

I think, when you want to develop a community, the intent is everything.

When you have intent, you do not have the fear of failure, you do not have the fear of perception by people and you also do not have the apprehension in learning the new.

 From Scratch to building a community in Educational Innovations and hosting education giants

Anyone, who had run a real OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE to make a change for the masses will testify to the frustration that I was going through during December 2014, the time when I started building this community.

(From left to right | Anupam Kaushik, Sandeep Kumar, Kuldeep Singh Dhaka)

We were working on Mad Resistor (an open-source technology initiative to provide affordable, energy-efficient credit card-sized tools & technology that along with your mobile and various sensors works as a laboratory to explore science and technology - also been awarded by HackaDay as a top 10 product innovation out of the worldwide 1400+ product entries).

Despite such achievements (later), the project was in the doldrums at that point in time and I was at an all-time low, not sure, where to go.

I was feeling as if I am the only fool around, who believes that he can change the world through education.

In a quest to check, whether I am the only one around, I started a group on meetup.com. That group gradually turned into an initiative and I call it 'EdMonks'.

Beginning with a Failure

The quest started with the name 'Education for Tomorrow' and I launched it on meetup.com here in Delhi.

Meetup proved to be a good platform for me and merely in a week's time, it was having 25 people on board.

My happiness knew no bounds, I was excited in a true sense and launched my first Ice Breaking meetup,

Pat came the reply from the almighty when at the CCD Lounge, the venue for that first Ice Breaking meetup, on that cold Sunday morning at Connaught Place, New Delhi, I could see only three people apart from me turned up for that meetup, namely Navin, Ranjana, and Jestine.

Navin was working with an Online Education Company, Ranjana happened to be a Soft Skills Trainer and Jestine was a Body Language Expert.

The turnaround

I was sad, very sad by observing so low attendance, but I will always be thankful to these three wonderful people, coz they really gave me new hope by admiring my ideas towards improving education and making a community.

Believe me, admiration motivates you phenomenally.

That day I went back and restructured the entire concept of my meetup group, rewrote the entire content, and even my own entire online presence.

Within a month's time, there were more than 150 people on board and I hosted my second event.

But this time, I decided to screen people. It was not open to everybody.

A new restaurant named Inniciio was launched in the center of the city, a really beautiful place,

On one side it had a stage with all musical instruments like a Guitar, Drum, Synthesizer, and many others with a small stage with around 30-40 beanbags to sit for the audience along with a Food serving counter, and on the other side was a conference kind of sitting, all in the open air.

This time I had the chance to host a Harvard Graduate, a private University owner, a Policymaker, school principals, NGOs, expatriates, and many many entrepreneurs in education.

Mind it, it was a contributory event and everybody paid their bill INR 150, the negotiated price per person for Tea/Coffee/sandwiches and Cookies (and I paid mine).

And I got the opportunity to share my ideas with 23 amazing people in merely 150 bucks. It was incredible

But in many ways, this event was a defining milestone for what this community is all about today.

It was my first opportunity to really understand the community,

I learned that it is not only about my ideas, it is rather about the collaboration of various ideas. The learning did not come easy, rather came the hard way.

After we finished this event, I realized, no one was really interested to talk to me. They were all getting business opportunities in each other and I was the last one they were willing to talk to. 

That day, I was sad again.

I thought "Oh my god, I have created this wonderful platform for these people and they should have thanked me, praised me, or if need be; worship me as I have given them this phenomenal platform, but here they are, not even considering me worth talking to".

In frustration, I was about to close this initiative, not because my event did not go well, but rather because it went so well that the people forgot me.

But I was lucky to have an amazing friend in Ms Kalpana Kadiyan, who actually helped me realize, that this is a success, this is exactly what I wanted to accomplish and I really admire her for that timely guidance.

The Power of Social

The number of members in the community was growing, I kept hosting events (FREE, people only pay for their Coffee to support the venue requirement).

Gradually I started getting support from Coworking spaces as they wanted a footfall of Startups,

and I started getting venues and Coffee and cookies Free of cost for all the people along with Audio Visual Support

I was hosting events on topics as varied as Hardware Technologies, Social Impact Assessment, Flipping Education, and whatnot.

That's when expatriates started recognizing me coz they were able to search for me on the Internet and I got them as a guest at my events and even at my home.

Yes, that's true, people were finding me through Internet searches. I was getting the chance to meet some really great individuals whom I would have never met otherwise, even in my dreams.

My personal brand was growing.

Today when I search 'Anupam Kaushik' on Google I find at least 8 links on the first page itself that are talking about me.

The power of social was amazing, now I was not afraid anymore to talk to anyone to invite them to speak at my events, coz it was not merely for me, it was for everybody.

The Growth in the number

I gradually started calling it 'Edupreneurs Network' and the number of members was still growing

When it was around 700, I was confused, about what to do next with this community, a member suggested making it a public incubator and I said what is that?

She, (I mean Suman Prasad, a research scholar in DNA structures from Delhi University) explained it to me as 'A platform where individuals can help each other with their respective skills. If A knows Internet marketing, B knows Legal issues and maybe C knows Operations, all of them may be running their own organization, alternatively, they may also help each other as a public incubator'.

I liked the idea and implemented it,

I named the initiative EDIX - The Educational Innovation Exchange

I thought the idea worked because the number grew very fast. Within a month, we crossed the 1000 members mark.

But later I had to drop the idea on practical grounds.

A majority of people were willing to get the help but were not really interested to provide it to others.

We had to change the name too because EDIX was an internationally well-established brand in education events

We started calling it 'EdMonks Education Entrepreneurs Network' which finally settled for 'EdMonks Edupreneurs Network'

I got the opportunity to host speakers Country Head of edX (an initiative in online education by MIT and Harvard), the India Strategist of Khan Academy met my mentor Prof M M Pant, and many more such dignitaries.

The Big Shift

But the major shift came when I realized that a major problem for education entrepreneurs was being able to connect with School Leaders.

Another issue I got to understand was that a majority of entrepreneurs who were claiming to be innovative were me-too enterprises.

So, I started speaking at various conferences of school leaders, where I met hundreds and hundreds of them.

It was indeed a good experience

I interviewed many of them and I realized that the pain in this section is much larger in this entire zone of education.

Sitting on this side of the table, it is easy to crib about school leaders and their attitudes toward education.

We easily label them, but when you go to the other side, you realize that not all school leaders are the same, and neither are their situations.

In my year-long research, I have seen dumb people sitting in the top positions and I have seen very passionate people struggling to survive and so I started building an idea called EdMonks that I will soon write about (because it is an even better story)

The Way Forward

After the pandemic, I again decided to build an online content platform and a community for innovative school leaders

Let's see, how can we structure EdMonks better.

Please do share your thoughts on kausho@gmail.com