Kabir Chadha, a Stanford Grad left a plump American job to build Indian dreams

He’s a 30-year-old Stanford graduate who gave up the American dream (basically a big fat package) from McKinsey after four years in New York. The prospect of marrying social impact with business value was his call.

He moved back to India in 2011, chanced upon his ‘big idea’, and a year later in March 2012, he started Epoch Elder Care, a company that provides professional home care to the elderly in Indian cities.

Cut to the present, he says assures he has an ‘extremely capable’ CEO in place, and has moved on to become the India Manager for Coursera. Meet Kabir Chadha. Girls, if the cover picture set your li’l hearts aflutter, don’t bother. I checked, he’s married.

Business Insider sat down with Kabir to discuss entrepreneurship, education and where Coursera fits in.

Which age bracket uses Coursera the most?
The main user group for India is a 22-28 year old, a mid-career builder, it’s male skewed, and the main intention is to get ahead in their careers.

Are you worried that the Indian education system doesn’t recognize certificate programmes?
I’m not worried because we’re planning a long game. For us to win, we need to teach skills that people need to succeed in their careers, and teach ‘em well. Whether people recognize a certificate and to what degree to me, is a secondary question.

However, going ahead it’s onto us to ensure that at least the companies recognize these certificates, and skills. Already, 90% of Indian Coursera users guarantee they got some career edge, and 30% say they got a tangible benefit. That means a job, promotion, raise or launching a startup.

Similarly, universities across the country and abroad are toying with the idea of setting these courses as pre-requisite for admission, even offering credits for the same. We’ll dig deeper, and get back to you with exact names sometime soon.

What’s the effective completion rate?
If people have paid for the course, the completion rates are to the tune of over 70%. If they haven’t, the rates are much lower.

Does the self-taught and self-paced system work for a country with rigorous classroom-based taught programmes?
The fact that someone’s taken time out to enroll shows their drive. Some may have completed the course, some may not. That’s secondary.
We’re working on some augmented learning solutions. Just like in a gym, people may need personal trainers, we’ll be rolling out personalized learning experiences over the next few years. Nothing’s decided yet.

Will the augmented reality support extend onto the free courses?
The moment you introduce human contact, the price goes up.

If you have a human being doing something, you have to pay that human being. That’s the reality of it unfortunately. However, the good thing is that you’ll get a Stanford certificate after a 2 months course for Rs. 2000. Where are you going to get that value?

What’s the Male-Female ratio like?
The male-female ratio is approximately 70:30, and it’s something I’d love to change over time.

Why this disparity, even for online courses?
Like everywhere else, we’re not doing everything we can as a country to create opportunities for women in business, technology and data science.

However, Coursera is more female-skewed than what the industry numbers show.

Why should I enroll in an online course?
In college you’re enrolled into a certain course, but here you have the ability to explore.

You can play around with Data Science, Poetry and Chemistry at the same time, test the water, and go back to what you really want. All of that at zero cost. Second is quality. Many of our Professors are noble prize winners. They use data to ensure the questions they ask lead to tangible outcomes. Also, you have the freedom to learn anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Will Coursera be available in regional languages?
Currently our focus in on English. There are 50 million people in India who know English well enough to learn in English. The skill gap there is tremendous, and we’ve only tapped into 1.4 million of them. The opportunity to grow there is so large, it will be diluting our efforts to offer courses in vernacular languages.

Where does the majority of your user-base lie?
It’s usually Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay in that order.

How can a startup founder benefit from Coursera?
He/she can take courses to understand entrepreneurship. The biggest mistake an entrepreneur makes is that they never realize there’s a right way to be an entrepreneur. They typically figure it out as they go. Entrepreneurship courses are helpful to cut down the cycle time.

Also, they can train their teams cheap using Coursera. Startups may not always find the perfect fit for a job.