BU students launch one-stop skill-building platform

BU students launch one-stop skill-building platform
Bennett students Hardik Aggarwal and Shrey Tyagi, co-founders of Skillarena, an online skill-development platform.

skillarena image-01

Aditi Paranjpe

With the vision to help youngsters enhance their skills and expand their knowledge base through the advancement of science, methodology, practical applicability, and technology, Bennett University students, Hardik Aggarwal and Shrey Tyagi launched Skillarena, an online skill development portal.

Aggarwal (BBA 3rd year) and Tyagi, (B.Tech 2nd year) designed this platform that focuses on helping students enhance their skills through theoretical and practical knowledge, combined with an array of live projects and internship opportunities, while also assisting students in the journey from campus to the corporate world.

“We looked at the future trends in the ed-tech industry and wanted to capitalize on our innovation. We amalgamated all the components together and crafted the very-first business model of Skillarena,” Aggarwal and Tyagi say.

With the assistance from the Bennett Hatchery and some external investors/mentors, they documented a business model on which Skillarena operates today.

But launching a skill development platform requires many resources, especially getting the right mentors. “Getting the right mentors was the toughest part. A lot of people rejected us,” Aggarwal explains. But they never compromised on quality and kept looking. “After a lot of hunting, we got 15 mentors on-board. They helped us develop market-ready courses, and after 10 months of hard work and sleepless nights, Skillarena has seven live courses on its website,” says Tyagi.

Every day brings a new opportunity to learn which helps them improve the core model of Skillarena. Aggarwal and Tyagi compared the start-up life to a roller coaster and said, “You can only exit the coaster once you have finally reached the station.”

The initial step was to develop something good enough to be presented to the market. After 10 months of rigorous effort by the team, they crafted their programs that combine with expert knowledge from mentors and hands-on experience via live-projects, which gives them an edge in the ed-tech industry.

The biggest challenge during the development phase according to the two was binding the team members together. In uncertain lockdown times, keeping the morale of the team members high was important. “The most magical way of binding the team together was to constantly interact with them during this lockdown and providing them with learning opportunities for personal development. Our team meeting sessions were always light-hearted and fun to keep the spirits up,” explains Aggarwal.

The Skillarena team consists of many Bennett students who work day and night towards the platform’s success. They are Ansh Bhatia, Arnav Lahiri, Deepanshu, Esha Kumar, Kanav Kansal, Kavya Agrawal, Manish Sharma, Megha Jajodia, Mitali, Mrinal Vij, Nitya Sri, Shivansh Yadav, Shria Violet, Stuti Agnihotri, Vandita Miglani, Yash Sharma, Ishika Bubna, and Ria Pipalwa.

The experience has been extremely exciting and rewarding for both. For Tyagi, managing the platform has added great value to his life. The crucial leadership and soft skills that came into play enhanced and helped in his personal growth. For Aggarwal, the experience has been rich and pushed him to go beyond his domain. His learning curve has gone up in all aspects.

In the future, Aggarwal and Tyagi have set higher goals for themselves. “We aspire to become the top platform where all skill-development related issues are solved. By March 1, 2021, establish 40 company collaborations, and by April 1, 2021, we want to launch 50 courses on the website,” Aggarwal and Tyagi say.

(The report has been written by Aditi Paranjpe, a student of BA (Journalism and Mass Communication) of Bennett University.)
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