NALANDA 2.0

Implementing game changing ideas at the system and institutional level are critical. 

 

The Ekagrid Foundation Board of Directors and Founder & President of Nalanda 2.0 have decided to close our planned university initiative. It was an ambitious initiative that we worked on from 2018 through 2024. As this chapter ends, we wanted to share a summary of the work we did and a note of gratitude.

We launched the initiative in 2018 to build a world-class multidisciplinary research university in India that would be at a similar level of excellence, scale, and scope as Stanford, MIT and Nalanda of ancient India. (note: initially the initiative was called University of the Future in India and was subsequently named Ekagrid)

Over these 6+ years, we:

1. Assembled an exceptional team of academic leaders, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and senior industry executives. Based in India, Australia, Singapore, UAE, and the US, the team included faculty or alumni of 11 of the top 25 research universities in the world.

2. Developed an actionable plan to achieve the goals after a detailed assessment of opportunities and challenges, global trends, and the future of work and education.

3. Established a Section 8 company in India and received 12A and 80G exemptions.

4. Reviewed close to 20 cities and over 30 sites in India to locate the university.

5. Engaged with the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister’s Office, Education Minister, and Chief Minister/Ministers/senior officials in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, and Telangana.

6. Met with many billionaires and ultra high-net worth individuals, corporations, and foundations globally to secure funding of $25 million-$100 million per anchor donor.

At least thrice in the last 18 months, we felt that we were close to securing an anchor donor-level funding and receiving required government support at the central and state levels to launch the university. Despite these concerted and sustained efforts over six years, we could not cross the finish line.

Such an ambitious initiative could not have reached where it did without the intellectual and social heft of the team, and support of donors, well-wishers and my family and friends. Thank you!

Before a problem can be solved it must be first acknowledged. 

 

Nalanda 2.0 is educating stakeholders on the importance and urgency of transforming India’s higher education system by writing blogs and articles, giving talks and interviews, participating in panel discussions, and meeting decision makers and influencers.

 

Shail Kumar, Founder and President, Nalanda 2.0, wrote a book on this subject titled: Building Golden India: How to unleash India's vast potential and transform its higher education system. Now. Many decision makers and influencers have read this book. In 2017, a Nobel Laureate presented this book to India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

We have made presentations and had interactive sessions at Amazon, Salesforce, Workday, UC Berkeley and Stanford University. Been interviewed by PanIIT USA, The INDUStry Show, and news media. Given talks at the IIT Leadership Conference in the Bay Area and participated in education panels at the Berkeley India Conference and Harvard India Conference.   

 

Over 1,500 students, faculty members, influencers, and IITians have attended these talks and panel discussions. We conducted a FB Live event that has so far reached over 6000 individuals and has been viewed by over 2000 unique viewers. In addition, we have written several articles and blogs, which had over 100,000 views and over 10,000 likes and shares.

Click here to read the blogs

Click here to read the articles and publications

Click here to view the videos and picture gallery to some of the talks

Policy-level interventions can have a significant impact quickly and at a large scale.

 

With this in mind, we have met and shared ideas for transforming India’s higher education system with leaders, policy makers, and influencers. This includes the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), New Education Policy (NEP) Committee, and several state governments.

 

In 2019, in partnership with the Government of National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi we spearheaded an effort to transform its higher education system. This included assembling a High-Level Committee consisting of leaders from academia, industry, government, and civil society from India and the US, and developing a draft report. When implemented, the recommendations in the report have the potential of making NCT of Delhi the Knowledge and Innovation Capital in the nation.

In the NEP Draft report (published June 2019), Shail Kumar was acknowledged in the “Eminent Persons” sub-section of this report (Page 461). Several of our recommendations are incorporated in the report. There is also a growing acknowledgment of our assessment of the challenges and opportunities facing the higher education system and proposed solutions. 

Most of our policy recommendations for higher education are incorporated in the National Education Policy (NEP) that was approved by the Cabinet of the Government of India in 2020. NEP 2020 is now the framework for governments' policy, funding, and actions for the future of school and higher education.

Click here to view pictures with some of the decision makers and influencers

Click here for the press coverage on the initiative to reform higher education in Delhi