When in doubt, Ask!

By Anurag Jain (Product Management)

I am delighted to announce that we have launched Shiksha’s Ask & Answer Android app on the 1^st of March, 2016. The app is a result of the effort put in by lot of folks and hence, this is a very exciting time for all of us at Shiksha!

When we started conceptualizing the app, our aspiration for the app was two-fold:

• Useful for higher education aspirants across all education streams
• Relevant for aspirants across all decision making stages ranging from career, country and course selection to entrance exam preparation and college admission

Basis my understanding of the higher education space built through research and interactions with students, parents, education experts, faculty and counselors, a couple of things had come out:

• Tens of millions of students look to pursue higher education every year.
• There is a wide array of career and education options available today for students, more so than ever before.
• There is a dearth of reliable information and guidance for students to make the best career and education decisions.

So when you put all of this together, what does it imply?

Majority of the higher education aspirants have an unmet need for reliable information and credible guidance that will help them make an informed career and education decision. Today, students and parents struggle to figure out the right career and education path for themselves or their child. Given the lifelong importance of these decisions, it’s not a desirable situation to be in – a situation of being uncertain about what is the right decision. And when one is uncertain, you have doubts and umpteen questions inside your head. You need answers to these vital questions.

This led to our desire to build an app that helps students and parents find answers to critical career and education related questions. Our vision at Shiksha is to help every higher education aspirant make an informed career and education decision and the Ask & Answer app is another significant step in fulfilling that vision.

So let me tell you what this app is all about.

In a nutshell, Shiksha’s Ask & Answer app is a dedicated platform for higher education aspirants to get quick, reliable and personalized answers to their specific career and education related questions. This app has brought together India’s largest education community on a single platform so that it can provide reliable answers to anyone who has career or education questions. The community includes faculty from higher education and test prep institutions, career and education counselors, working professionals across industries, CxOs, various subject matter experts, college alumni, current students and higher education aspirants. This diversity of experts across various career and education streams is one of the key value propositions of the app.

Another strong value proposition of the app is that it leverages the combined power of the 3C’s: Content, Context and Community, to serve a completely personalized experience to each user. In simple words, this implies that the content (which is a mix of questions, answers, discussions) a user will see on the app will be contextually relevant to that user. As users interact with the content and the community on the app, we will serve content that is fresh and relevant to each user basis the user’s interest or preference (more on how we do this in another post).

So who should download this app?

1. Students

This app is meant for students who want answers to their specific career or education related questions be it around career scope, specialization choices, course selection, exam preparation or college admission.

1. Parents

This app will be useful for parents who want to help their child make the right career or education decision. Parents can use this app to ask specific questions related to their child’s career and education and keep themselves updated by consuming relevant content or hearing what experts have to say.

1. Contributors and Experts

This app is meant for everyone in our society including people like you and me. Come on board and help every student pursue an education or a career that he or she is interested in and can succeed at.

I, therefore, welcome each of you to download and try the app. It’s just been a few days and while we have received early positive encouragement, I would love to hear from you about what you like about the app, how we can improve it and if there is anything else you would like to see on the app. Do share your thoughts by writing to us at appfeedback@shiksha.com.

Till next time, happy asking and answering!

[First Published on March 8, 2016]