Creating for the Masses with Sridhar Ranganathan
Founder & CEO of Shankar Mahadevan Academy, Cloodon
Written by Ujjwal Pandya and Anvesha Dubey
“First thing you have to do is to believe in what you do; if you do that, then your work is half done. Otherwise, it gets boring,” says Sridhar Ranganathan, Founder & CEO at Shankar Mahadevan Academy and SeekLMS, based out of Bangalore, Karnataka. He has also founded Blue Vector and Online Anywhere. Having worked for Xerox and Yahoo, Sridhar is a pioneer in the fields of accessing the internet on mobile devices and what is called EdTech today.
After finishing his post-graduation in Computer Science, Sridhar got an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Later, he ventured into his first entrepreneurial experience at, Pure Software founded by the CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings. That is when he understood the power of entrepreneurship and believing in what one can accomplish.
One of the most crucial learnings that Sridhar has received is treating people from all walks of life with integrity, respect and dignity. A business can go through its highs and lows, but in the long run, it is people who make things happen. On the same note, he believes in dealing with challenges with a good dose of positivity. Sridhar prefers to be concerned about only those issues where you have options or some measure of preference, not for those issues where you do not have a say.
Sridhar’s first job at Xerox Corporation as a Firmware Software Engineer taught him a lot. Making him work on the computer graphics and colour, the company was very organized and conducted training for their employees globally.
Always viewing technology as a tool for several possibilities for the masses, Sridhar founded Online Anywhere, along with two college buddies Mohan Vishwanath and Anurag Mendhekar. All this started with casual interaction in the hope that someday some people might use email on their phones, back in 1997. When several devices were getting developed like handheld computers, Sridhar and his co-founders knew that information, will be sought universally. They started with working on all productivity tools like maps, email, weather, and news articles. Then they developed voice markup language and several other programming languages to help in the progress of mobile data.
Sridhar realized what he really loved doing was building something creative and constructive for the masses. This is when Yahoo! acquired Online Anywhere and appointed him as the General Manager of Yahoo! Everywhere. After returning to India, he established a Yahoo! software development unit here. His other startup — Blue Vector Inc, in 2006 was about sensor-based automation. Though it was not that successful at that time, we see its modern version today as FASTag.
Narrating the journey of Yahoo!, Sridhar suggests that it is essential to keep up with the fast-moving market and build strategies accordingly. In fact, the lack of this led to the decline of the market share of Yahoo!. But it stood out from other competitors because it was the first to focus on the UI when most other features were alike. Apart from a spectacular technical team, having people like Dave Shen Irene Au and a stellar team for UX and UI gave Yahoo an edge in the earlier years. But later, when Yahoo! positioned itself for catering only to the entertainment needs of users, it got limited and started neglecting the importance of search. After signing a deal with Google to be its search engine, Yahoo! could not sustain its business and faded away.
With his observations and understanding of the demand for content in online mode, Sridhar developed the SeekLMS, an online learning management system, in 2009 itself. He came up with the concept of a desk with a smart writing tab on it. While propagating these from school to school, he found that the school heads were sceptical about adopting such e-learning aids. During this journey, Sridhar chanced to meet his college classmate Shankar Mahadevan who wanted to start a music academy. Sridhar offered Shankar to start his academy in an online format, and by looking at digital transformation, Shankar immediately accepted this offer.
Sridhar believes that even after starting a music academy, he has not deviated from his path to create something that reaches the masses through his technical expertise. It is just not in the usual geeky way. In fact, music is the best way to do so in a joyful way, and hence the vision statement, ”Joy of Music” is not just for a select group of people. Everyone enjoys music, and it gives the ultimate freedom to all.
Shankar Mahadevan Academy ensured to develop a strong foundation. The first courses were for the learners who can pay for those to ensure quality in the curriculum. Later, with the help of the Tata group and other donors, they expanded it to those who could not afford the course while maintaining the same quality of teaching and learning. The mission statement -Joy of Music -always encouraged them to make learning further inclusive by adding people in the autism spectrum, from Down’s syndrome or those with special needs. It is not music therapy, but just 45 minutes of the Joy of Music.
While devising the curriculum, being a layman for music helped Sridhar as well. He was able to ask questions which the experts would not consider. For instance, why is the Sargam taught separately if the songs are composed out of it? This is why they teach all the songs, with the Sargams embedded in them. Later, they created four sets of 8–10 courses, each with 100 series for beginners, 200 series for intermediate learners, 300 for advanced, and 400 for masters, with 12 classes per course. During this, they made sure to eliminate the unnecessary conventional practices while keeping the valuable traditional knowledge and not losing the values.
Beyond music education, Sridhar also observed the need for practical knowledge from primary education. He wanted to teach concepts in subjects ranging from math and science to geography or accounting by taking inspiration from everyday activities. For example, teaching simple arithmetic through a role-play of a farmers’ market or geometry and trigonometry through simple and fun activities like playing carrom. Another of his observations includes how autistic individuals can engage in repetitive tasks without getting frustrated. It is now adopted by the Enable India initiative to make workspaces for vulnerable people and empower them.
Designing for the masses through observation of future needs of people is how Sridhar led his journey towards Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He says, “You will make it through the water body if you jump in with the belief of swimming through to the other side. You have to try it out and even make some water if it is empty. But you will make it through.”
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