Ostad
Interviewed By Bonnishikha Chowdhury, MBR Team
Ostad Building The Future Ostads of Bangladesh
Origins of Ostad
To learn a new skill, there are two options available - Online Video Course and Physical Live Training. But research says that only 1 student out of 10 who
purchase, can complete the recorded video course. Rest 9 people choose the Physical Live Training center. But it is both costly and inaccessible to 7 out of these 9 people in Bangladesh. So, only 3 people out of 10 can have proper guidance for Skill Development in Bangladesh.
Here comes the idea of Ostad. An Online Live Learning Platform. They use Technology
& Task based curriculum to turn Online Pre-recorded video courses and Physical Live Training into an On-live Course, which is Online Live Course. The founders, are engineers and have worked in different tech companies, educational institutions, and training centers. While working on these organizations, they all felt the pain of learning a new skill in a developing country like Bangladesh and hence this motivated them to start Ostad.
Overview and Progress of Ostad
Ostad is an online live learning platform that ensures the best learning experience through an On-Live Course. They create a task-based customized curriculum for a particular skill. Live Courses continue with day to day completion of tasks. People join Day-1’s live class from their Ostad profile with a single click, do their homework, submit their task, get feedback from Instructor, see their progress on the leaderboard, and then join Day-2’s live class.
In this way, people complete the whole course, and surprisingly Ostad has a 99.98% course completion rate.
To ensure more effective learning, they are integrating AI in the learners’ dashboard to track automatically in which stage they are and show the learners their daily progress.
Ostad was founded in May 2020 in Bangladesh, to provide proper skill training and Job Preparation guidance to 60 Million People. They launched their
first product in October 2020 with 35 instructors. In January 2021, they launched the 2nd version of their product with automated class joining and
class recording.
Currently, Ostad provides online live courses on Corporate Skill, Engineering Skills, Design Skills and Al Quran learning. They have 49 verified instructors from Bangladesh, the USA, Canada, Malaysia, and Germany who have guided over 20,000 (both paid and free) people in different skills and job preparation so far through their Live Learning Platform.
Till now, they mentored 2100 paid learners generating 5.1 Million+ BDT GMV and they have spent 40,000+ live learning hours in their platform.
How the Pandemic Helped Ostad and Their Accomplishments so far
The Pandemic has helped them a lot. As Ostad is a live learning platform, people need to join “Zoom” for their classes. It works as a magical shift from a boring pre-recorded course to an online live interactive course. During this Pandemic, as Universities were closed and students were stuck at home, Ostad has collaborated with 45 Universities and 6 Private Companies to provide online live skill training to their students and employees respectively.
People from remote areas of Bangladesh, who have access to the internet and have devices that can connect them with an Instructor from the US, can ask questions directly in live classes and get direct answers from the respected instructors and complete the course with satisfaction. This so far has been the biggest achievement for Ostad.
Lessons Learned Over the Course of Their Journey
To ensure the best Online Skill training, there needs to be a learning environment where students can perform and the instructors can watch them and provide them with instant feedback in each class. There needs to be a direct student-instructor interaction in each class, regular push up and inspiration from Instructor, and a task-based curriculum to engage the students in the course, these are the few lessons that they have learned so far.
The biggest challenge that they faced is the unavailability of devices for learning soft skills. They found many learners from different parts of the country, who want to develop their skills in Office tools and Design tools but they cannot due to the unavailability of a proper desktop or laptop.
Strategic Priorities and How They Plan to Scale-Up
AI-enabled Learner dashboard is the most needed thing right now in their platform. Currently, the process of tracking the learners’ progress is done manually from the instructor’s feedback and marking. But when it will be automated, learners will be more inspired and enthusiastic towards their Learning Journey.
Another Strategic plan of Ostad is to build its own video conferencing platform. Right now they are using the SDK of Zoom to stream live classes on their website. But it creates a big chunk of operational cost as they have to run almost 25+ Onlive Batch simultaneously at a time.
To scale up, they need a great number of industry experts as an instructor, a proper customized curriculum, and AI-based learning platform where there is an in-house video conferencing platform. They are planning to implement all these things in their platform to launch their product globally and reach out to 1.2 billion people who need immediate skill training & language learning guidance.
HEALTH-TECH IN BANGLADESH: ENSURING HEALTH CARE SERVICES AMIDST THE PANDEMIC
Health-tech in Bangladesh: Safeguarding the country’s health care sector with constant improvement
With the vision of Digital Bangladesh, the nation has set its foot on the path of digitization. Last year when the entire country saw an influx of Covid-19 cases, e-health allowed healthcare to reach the households of Bangladesh allowing patients to receive quality health services in the palm of their hands by ensuring
safety measures. Initiatives were taken in the past to establish e-health services in Bangladesh, however, due to lack of technological advancement imperceptible advancement were made. At present with a significant amount of the population having access to mobile phones and the internet has made the availability of e-health services feasible.
Exploiting the blessing of artificial intelligence several new health-tech platforms have emerged in Bangladesh. These platforms are not only standing by the side of the Covid-19 affected patients but also with patients who are afraid of visiting doctors for other health-related issues during the pandemic. Starting from helping patients with mental health issues, to connecting patients with their desired doctors who can provide them with online consultations, to providing medicines at the patients’ doorsteps and providing pharmacies in remote areas with the required medical supplies, to providing diagnostic test services at home, all of these have been successfully implemented in Bangladesh, by the youth over the past few years.
The government has not been sitting behind in exploiting technology for health care, countless approaches were initiated by the government in order to reach out to the patients. Online portals have been established to keep the people updated with the latest Covid news, chatbots are delivering health services by extracting information from health experts of renowned organizations. Awareness is being spread to each citizen by the means of social media. Similar approaches like Bangladesh have also been taken by our neighbors India, Pakistan, and Nepal. While the city dwellers are benefitting from all the advancements, the rural poor are still being a victim of the digital divide. Even though several approaches have been initiated in the rural areas, they still have a long way to go.
As Bangladesh is still on its way towards digital Bangladesh, countless bridges need to be constructed in order to fill in the gap in the fractured healthcare
system. According to experts, the emerging e-health platform provides a path for the socio-economic development of the country. Hence, with proper utilization of resources, the country will be able to level up the health care sector, especially in the rural areas.
Bonnishikha Chowdhury
Executive Officer
IDLC Finance Limited