Pupilfirst and its partners Alumni Days 2021
It’s been almost 3 years since we began this journey with Pupilfirst School (previously, Startup Village Collective). What started as a small experiment with 25 odd engineering students in 2018 has now grown to over 1000 students.
In February earlier this year, we brought together this community of students and the partners we’ve worked with till date for the first time for an online event. We met our alumni, checked in on them with how they were doing and exchanged ideas about the various emerging technologies with the amazing industry experts that have been involved with us in this space. While it was an occasion for all of them to come together and interact, it was also an event rich with discussions about various emerging technologies. We ensured that we brought in our seasoned industry experts who brought in their own unique perspectives.
The event was entirely orchestrated and moderated by Pupilfirst alumni (Kriti, Mayank, Mamatha, Jivesh, Robin, Prathamesh, Apoorva, Vamsi) with assistance from the Pupilfirst team. All the familiar faces from all the different batches and courses were on the same platform for the first time.
Many students from the Virtual Reality course, Augmented Reality course, Web technologies course participated along with representation from the Startup batch back in 2016. Mentors met their mentees, peers interacted with each other after years and the sense of community was reminisced.
We might not meet each other often but every time we meet, we just pick right back up from where we left. :)
Sanjay Vijaykumar, Founder and Chairman of Pupilfirst kick started the 2 day event with a session detailing out the long term vision of the Pupilfirst School... Following which we saw a host of panels from our industry partners, Facebook and Freshworks. They discussed the events in the technology space and offered their perspectives on how it was evolving. The panels were also joined by our beloved coaches and our alumni who are the thread stitching this story together for all of us.
Event Agenda
We heard from our students, and their amazing journeys beyond the program. For us at the Pupilfirst team, it was a heartwarming moment to see the students grow to become the experts in their domains.
Some of them are contributing to the industry leveraging the same skill-sets they gained at Pupilfirst School. While some have changed tracks and moved on to pursue different industries and interests. And some have ventured out on the path of entrepreneurship.
A noteworthy mention is Prithiv Palani, a student from the very first Virtual Reality Batch from School of Innovation India from Facebook. After a brief stint in the Corporate world, Prithiv has started up in the VR domain by launching ATSAE Technologies.
We also learned about the upcoming courses and industry leaders that Pupilfirst is partnering with from Gautham, Founder and Director at Pupilfirst. Some of the tentative courses and partners joining the cadre are Electric Vehicles course from Micelio and an AI/ML course from Jiffy.AI.
We also learned firsthand about the journeys of individual students, their unique perspectives on life, work and their worldviews. Suma Sundararajan, Chief of Operations at Pupilfirst, in an engaging panel discussion threw light on the personal journeys of students.
What Next?
We want this community of raw talent to be able to engage with each other seamlessly, therefore benefitting and enhancing the value of the whole community put together. So now the community has an official home at Pupilfirst and its partners Alumni on LinkedIn. Students from across batches can reach out to the alumni of their respective courses or other courses for general guidance, exchange ideas, help each other move between industries and to pay it forward.
Upwards and Onwards!