Globally, there are about 50,000 course providers and over 1.5 million courses published. An average of 60 million+ online courses are searched on Google every month. The sheer number of courses available online and the lack of information can make it challenging for a user to find a course that is relevant, useful and engaging. On the other hand, trainers have a tough time finding and directing relevant traffic for their courses.
Get Me A Course (GMAC) was started with a two-fold goal in mind - one, to help users with structured course selection rather than random selection and two, to help trainers with course discovery and improved conversion rates.
GMAC is an edutech company that provides tailored solutions for learning, mentorship and employment. Founded in 2017 by Rohan Krishna, Shashwat Swaroop, Ammin Rajqotwala and Dr. Kshama Bhatia, GMAC is a data-driven technology platform that aggregates worldwide courses onto a single platform.
In an interaction with TNM, Rohan Krishna, CEO & Co-Founder, Get Me A Course (GMAC), spoke about how the concept came about, how it helps learners and trainers, the effort that went into the back-end to aggregate worldwide online courses onto a single platform, among other things.
What prompted you to start GMAC? Explain the journey till now
In the ‘one click’ economy where flights, hotels, groceries, loans and medicines are available where you are in a jiffy, looking for the right course still involves hours of nightmarish searches online, reading hundreds of reviews and blogs, having to take a chance! For learners Get Me A Course (GMAC) brings this one-click efficiency to finding the right course. For trainers, GMAC solves the ‘Discovery Problem’: where top trainers struggle to make themselves visible and reach students. GMAC removes the chance factor from learning.
One of the key questions that professionals often get asked is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” This is a question that has stumped not just the unemployed young worker but many a senior professional. The bigger question that stares professionals in the face is if you have indeed charted a path for career advancement, how do you identify and acquire the crucial skills to grasp that coveted higher rung on the ladder? We ourselves have faced this dilemma as we navigated our careers. This is what led to GetMeACourse.com (GMAC).
GMAC’s proprietary Career Path Recommendation Engine helps individuals identify their current standing with respect to skills and pay scales. It then outlines the succeeding levels in the career ladder they can upgrade to, along with the expected pay range and skill sets required along the given trajectory. This is supplemented by suggestions of top courses for the learner’s particular skill-building needs.
A third key problem with learning online is the ultra-low completion rates - 60 million people are searching for courses online yet only 2% complete courses on most MOOCs (massive open online courses) today. To solve this, we match the learner’s intent (whether he/she is taking the course to get a new job or move to a new role or just to learn) with market data - what jobs are really available for a skill, which mentors can the learner connect to and so on. For instance, would you really want to sign on to an expensive cryptocurrency course if there are only 15 job vacancies for that skill in your geography?
GMAC supports the lifetime needs of a person vis-a-vis learning, employment and mentorship. GMAC brings order to the previously disorganised education sector.
How does it help learners? What’s in it for trainers?
GMAC caters to learners who come from all walks of life - they could be professionals learning that particular skill that will catapult them to the next level on the career ladder, students looking to fathom the intricate concepts of calculus or even hobby chefs looking to master baking. GMAC course listings go beyond conventional e-learning: a quick search on the portal reveals listings of online self-paced and live instructor-led courses, and classroom / boot camp programmes. GMAC’s focus on intent-based learning and skill-building can provide a much-needed fillip for job seekers.
GMAC is a first-of-its-kind platform that gives visibility to course providers, trainers and e-learning firms who are competing against universities and established training companies. GMAC’s ‘Course Manager’ helps trainers across the globe list their courses for free and be visible to millions of learners. A course listing on GMAC also comes with a free microsite where trainers can promote themselves. Get Me A Course helps trainers promote their courses across various social media platforms for a desired period using AdSmart, a paid feature that allows trainers to plan and optimise their ad spend across channels with the help of a GMAC campaign strategist. As a full-service platform catering to learners and trainers, GMAC is emerging as a one-stop online destination in the world of learning.
What kind of effort went into the back-end to aggregate worldwide courses onto a single platform?
This was a herculean effort - we had to sift through data and map to disparate APIs (application program interface) to get information on learners, courses, trainers and trends globally over the course of several months. We built several proprietary algorithms to derive (some startling) insights into the industry. E-learning being so fragmented, a course listed under ‘Arts and Culture’ on one site was under ‘Humanities’ on another.
GMAC is proud to have created industry-first standards for e-learning course and metadata categorisation. We have over 170,000 courses listed in this open format, available for global users to search. We’re working on metadata of over 200,000 more courses that need to be structured and integrated into our portal.
The proprietary algorithms developed by our team of data analysts, which are at the core of our AI-powered offering, scrub the net 24X7 and discover the latest and the best courses out there for our eager learners. Our development centre runs round the clock with the only focus being curating new courses, updating records and making sure that we are able to provide the best course metadata for the portal. We curate courses from the various learning platforms - you get to choose the course that fits your needs the best.
Based on your survey of users searching for different courses in India, what interesting insights did you get?
We have seen that there is an inherent hunger for learning in everyone – the sense of accomplishment that one gets on learning something new is like none other!
We have learners of ages ranging from 18 to 65+ from a whopping 172 countries logging into GMAC, using 1800+ keywords - the data we’re getting about learner behaviour is just mind boggling. The top 5 countries logging in are India, the US, Canada, Iran and the UK.
We’ve derived startling insights that run contrary to the ‘trends’ that people tout about data science or AI/ML being ‘hot’ topics for learners. For instance, our data shows that Networking, Java, Medicine, Health and Fitness, Cyber Security, Finance Management, Architecture, Web Development are the top searches currently. These are key insights that trainers and course creators should be aware of!
Expansion plans for the future
Well, there’s a lot to be done! Our vision is to be a pathbreaking Data and Technology driven aggregator connecting the lifetime needs for an individual from learning, employment and mentorship. We are working towards bringing more value to the ecosystem by organising it and at the same time working deep in AI-built recommendation engine. Our plans include further enhancing our product to inspire, engage, and delight our users by directing them to finely tailored solutions for all learning and career growth needs. At the same time, we are on a mission to create a layer in the ecosystem between the employers and training / degrees that actually verifies and certifies the skills of every individual, with millions of users accessible globally.
How do you see this sector evolving?
A review of Google data shows that more than 60 million searches happen for online courses related topics every month. According to a study by KPMG in India and Google, India’s online education market is set to grow to USD 1.96 billion and around 9.6 million users by 2021. The global data is even more promising. Not only we will see a market growth, we will also see a shift in the way people are trying to get access to learning. You will be surprised to see the data today about Hotels and Flights. Try remembering when was the last time you went on Google and searched for “Cheap flights from City A to City B” or “Best hotel in Mumbai” or do you use one of your favourite websites to get it done for you? A similar shift is happening in the education sector.