From Mannarakoil To CEO Of Global Scholar: Kal Raman’s Journey (Part 4)

Sramana: Did Global Scholar emerge out of your charitable work in education?

Kal Raman: In 2004 Mike Milken learned about my efforts and desires to help with education. He told me he had donated a billion dollars to US education and that he still could not make a dent. He was pleased that I had the same inspirations and recommended that instead of donating money we should make a digital education system that was accessible and affordable to distribute throughout the world.

I told him that I thought that it was a great idea but that I did not think I was ready to be a CEO. However, Mike was relentless for two and a half years so I finally conceded. In 2006 I left Amazon.com and I took a two day break over a weekend before starting Global Scholar the following Monday. I spent the next six months traveling to India, Singapore, China, as well as various education administrators in the US from Washington DC to various principals of schools throughout the country. I talked with successful education companies as well as failed education companies as well as publishers and foundations.

I was trying to figure out where to place the emphasis for US education. The US has not received the results it wants. Graduation rates have not gotten better. Only 22% of graduates attend a four year college. Less than 5% of kids are going after engineering or science degrees. The US is 26th in math and reading in world-wide surveys. All of this despite the US spending 770 billion dollars a year or more on education.

One thing became obvious within the first two weeks; on average a school district spends 200 dollars on technology per student, per year. Nobody in the ecosystem of students, parents, teachers or administrators received actionable information from that technology. You can immediately translate that into lack of an integrated solution. My question was, if the problem is so damn obvious why had companies who had been in this industry for decades not have addressed it? It was either a case of where common sense had become uncommon, or there was no actual business market.

I spent the next three months doing more research. I determined that it was a case of common sense becoming uncommon. I then set a vision to create an educational ERP which will capture data from every unit of action in a school system and would output actionable information. That type of data would allow the individuals in the educational ecosystem to solve the problems that they care about.

I raised 50 million dollars, acquired four companies, and spent the next three years with my head down focusing on development of the infrastructure. By 2009 we had the infrastructure done and in 2010 we grew 100% year over year with absolutely no marketing.

This segment is part 4 in the series : From Mannarakoil To CEO Of Global Scholar: Kal Raman's Journey
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