- 6/11/2025
Ronnie Screwvala, the chairperson and co-founder of upGrad Entrepreneur, and investor and philanthropist spoke about how the advent of technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping the way business is conducted. He also talked about the relevance of AI for both leaders and new entrants to the workforce.
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00:00Good morning again everyone and I would like to add a bit to what Ridhima just had to say
00:13about the man on the stage today.
00:17He is someone whose words of wisdom have the potential to actually change your life from
00:22perhaps being a salaried person to an individual who aspires to build a business of his own.
00:29Roni has built businesses across decades and industries and comes with invaluable experience
00:35and we hope to learn a lot from him today.
00:38We will talk about his inspiring journey today and the disruptions that are critical for
00:44the future.
00:45So Roni, welcome to the stage here andâŠ
00:49Maybe I just thought I would make an opening comment because I'm⊠actually nobody
00:54here qualifies for retirement so I don't know why we are all gathered here.
00:58Absolutely nobody qualifies.
01:01I also believe that when you use the word retirement, it's almost like it's something not in your
01:09control and somebody else is handing it out to you, right?
01:12And I think the basic concept today, if the world has changed and we're going to talk
01:16about AI, we need to talk about change in mindsets and change in how we approach that.
01:21So retirement for me is something that was predetermined by somebody else who would determine when you
01:25or would not have your time up.
01:29And I think that phase is gone in everybody's life.
01:32Because today, I know I'm⊠luckily or fortunately or unfortunately I'm not one of the circle
01:37of people here who's selling a financial instrument so I can talk a little bit more candidly.
01:42And all I can say here is, genuinely and absolutely, the options and the professions that we have
01:52for us as we continue into our 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s⊠today I think technology has changed so much.
02:00India wants to be a modern country and a developed country by 2047.
02:04Hopefully, we'll do that even less.
02:06And frankly, of course, the youth will participate.
02:08But I think the people who are evolved in life and the maturity is going to play an equal role.
02:15You can be a coach, you can be a teacher, you can be a mentor for life.
02:19That's a profession nobody can take away from you.
02:22You cannot possibly think you're going to retire.
02:24So I know you're going to look at surplus funds when you look at how you want to start
02:28your retirement planning, but actually what's really going to get you going is to figure
02:34out the two or three things that are going to get you 10 times more active than you were.
02:39The good part about being at a senior level in your age is you have choices.
02:47I think Sonia mentioned that if you have money, then you have a little bit of your money matters.
02:50I think you have choices.
02:53I believe today I'm better posed to say no to things at this stage in my life than what
02:59I did.
03:00When I was younger, 90% of the things you have to do, 10% of the things you choose to do.
03:05Today, I think 90% of the things I may want to choose to do and 10% is what I can say no
03:10to.
03:11So I would just put down here outside of the financial wealth, our ability and the power
03:16for us to be able to actually think through and decide that now the next 20, 30 years,
03:21we can do an incredible amount of optionality that in the first 30 years we couldn't do,
03:26but we can do, I think is an opening thesis today also, outside of some of the other things
03:30we're talking about.
03:31But I couldn't help resist that, I'm overhearing the earlier conversation today.
03:36Absolutely.
03:37So in fact, what Ronnie is talking about is reinventing yourself and you have more opportunity perhaps
03:42when you are older and you can make your own choices very clearly.
03:46But you in your life, in your journey, you have reinvented yourself many times, you know,
03:52along with businesses that you have set up.
03:54But something is bound to remain constant in all this.
03:57So what are the core principles that have remained with you while you were reinventing
04:04yourself and looking at new opportunities and businesses?
04:07So one thing I really strongly believe, especially when one is building from time to time, is the
04:13element of frugality.
04:15I think it's a big word and people don't necessarily connect with it the first time I say it, but
04:20I think it slowly dawns with people.
04:22But I think when you start and I, you know, the startup world today is not necessarily built
04:27on frugality.
04:29So while there's an incredible amount of passion that goes into that, I worry about the fact
04:34that some of the basis, and that is also because the funding ecosystem in some ways
04:38has supported it, but in many ways has corrupted it.
04:42And I think therefore, if you really believe that, for me, reinventing yourself, the basic
04:48principle is frugality.
04:49I think the second one is exactly the fact that you have to keep reinventing yourself because
04:54if you're not being able to do that, that constant will not be there.
04:57So I think these are the two factors that have been the ground principle for me whenever
05:01I've looked at things.
05:02Okay, great.
05:03That I think is, again, a big learning for you guys who may be looking at newer opportunities.
05:10But coming to the next question, India is, you know, a growing country.
05:14It's going to be a 10 trillion economy, as they say.
05:18So what is the future that you predict in terms of the sectors or businesses that will come
05:24up?
05:25And especially, you may be reminded of the media and EdTech industries where they were
05:31when you kind of entered and made a change to that.
05:34So what do you have to say about that?
05:36Well, you know, I think there are multiple sectors.
05:39And I think what we say today may be not so relevant four years from now.
05:42But if I were to talk about today, I think, frankly, the sector that I'm in, which is skilling,
05:47reskilling, workforce development.
05:48I wouldn't call it education because that's a very formal sector and a formal name for
05:53it.
05:54But that entire segment is rife open because there is absolutely no choice in the fact
05:59that we are going to be forever learners.
06:01Gone are the days where you could read the book and it said, stay curious, because now
06:05if you just stay curious, you can go on ChatGPD and ask some basic questions.
06:09That's not going to get you very far.
06:11You'll have to figure out and structurally reinvent yourself.
06:15So I think that's a large segment.
06:17I think we are under indexed on anything to do with health care and medical.
06:22Right.
06:23And, you know, I mean, the whole medical, the whole what I would call pharma industry or
06:28hospital change, maybe about 10 years back was what, a 5,000, 10,000 crore market cap industry.
06:33Today, from what I understand, and I don't follow the stock market, it's about a 5 lakh crore
06:37market cap.
06:38So if you see the growth that is happening in the entire sense of care, I won't even
06:43call it health care, the care is going to be a very large segment, not just in India,
06:49but in many parts of the world.
06:50I see that.
06:51Renewables is a very large sector for India because whether we like it or not, we're going
06:56to need multiple optionalities for some of the energy parts here.
07:01And I know for most people that sounds like a distant, you need to be really in a billion
07:06dollar capitalization points process.
07:09But these are sectors that I think, on the flip side, I very strongly believe we're under,
07:16we under celebrate the micro, small and medium entrepreneurs in this country.
07:21Because actually that's the bedrock.
07:23Without them, we wouldn't even be able to be a manufacturing base of any scale.
07:28So that entire segment, if one can start looking at different ages and you're 50 and 60 to keep
07:33promoting that, you're not going to be able to unlock value.
07:36But those are the sectors that is actually going to create more jobs than anywhere else.
07:41More self-employment than jobs.
07:44I think we need to forget that if you want to create 200 million jobs over the next decade,
07:4950% of them has to come from self-employment or entrepreneurship.
07:55Because there isn't that ecosystem that's going to create that many jobs.
07:58Right.
07:59So in the earlier conversation also, I think we mentioned that, you know, longevity is increasing
08:05and maybe there is no time to retire anymore.
08:08And reinvention is the key word for you.
08:11What you have done with your life and the businesses that have come across.
08:15So what my question is that, you know, when one thinks about second innings,
08:20which a lot of people might have to think because of lack of retirement preparedness and other factors.
08:26So what is it that they should really look at?
08:29Should they kind of stick with the skills that they already have,
08:33the kind of work they have done or look at reinvention?
08:36Is it that easy, the reinvention that we are talking about?
08:39So I'll answer that in two ways.
08:41Firstly, to your second question, it's a straight flat answer.
08:44It has to be both.
08:45If you're going to use your existing skills without reinventing self, you're dead.
08:49If you're only going to reinvent yourself and not use your existing selves,
08:53you're under indexing yourself.
08:55So there's no question about the back that it has to be an and.
08:58And it has to be a deliberate and.
09:00It can't be a casual and.
09:01That yes, yes, I'll pick up some experience on the way.
09:04It has to be a structured and.
09:06I think the second one is we need to be careful between starting a second act and a second innings.
09:12And I know for me, most people would mean like, what's the difference?
09:15Like I think when I moved out of media, a lot of people thought the right thing for me to do was to double down on that.
09:21To me, that would have been a second act.
09:24It takes a lot to be successful in something after 20 years and 100 failures.
09:30To do a second act is very, very difficult to do a second innings just allows you to have a very different, fresh start.
09:36And the reason I say that for a lot of people and the word of caution, I would say, is what happens in your second act, which is not what I recommend, is you kind of go back to the same lessons you've learned.
09:47The tendency for us to call in most of the people we worked with for the first 10, 20 years of our life is very high.
09:53And I think that's the biggest mistake.
09:55Most of us join jobs and then we take the best three, four people.
09:58We want to start something else.
09:59We call people we've had comfortable relationships with.
10:02You're not going to reinvent yourself.
10:04You're not going to rediscover yourself.
10:06Each one's going to finish each other's sentences.
10:08There's not going to be any more challenging.
10:10So I strongly recommend that for me second innings was I wanted to go completely out of a sector because only then will you force yourself to reinvention.
10:20It's very easy to get tempted into a second act.
10:22It's very easy to call in people you've had great relationships with.
10:26But you're fooling yourself because you won't be able to grow.
10:29You won't be able to reinvent.
10:30You won't be able to disrupt.
10:31And the next value creation is not going to happen with the same cast of characters.
10:36Yeah, so that point is very important and absolutely we see in the industry also like when even when people change jobs, they'll take the teams with them.
10:45And I'm sure that happens with reinvention also.
10:48But when you're starting something new, it is a risk.
10:53And what do you have to say about that kind of risk?
10:57Will, does everyone have that, you know, stomach to, can stomach that risk?
11:04You know, risk is now a different world.
11:06There are no job guarantees.
11:08I think anyone thought 10 years back, 20 years back and all of us would say our parents were in two jobs in their whole career.
11:14Now everyone's changing job every two years.
11:17I think COVID has changed the element of how we look at as just health, wellbeing.
11:24So there's risk overall in your overall context of health and wellbeing.
11:30There's risk because there are absolutely no job guarantees.
11:33So if you look at some of the elements of where you're going, that risk element is not something that should stop you.
11:40If it anything else, it needs to feel that it liberates you to a level that says, how am I going to optimize my resources given the risks?
11:47And that's how I would kind of view it.
11:49Otherwise, if it's a limiting factor, you're not prepared for what are the things that are anyway staring at you.
11:55The risks are around you right now today.
11:58And actually non deciding on that, as we know, is the biggest risk.
12:02So it has to be taken in our strides in a way.
12:05So coming to the point of AI technology, which we are talking about also today, it is accelerating decisions.
12:14It is, you know, very, very critical in kind of execution.
12:19It's building businesses anew, changing the nature of businesses in a lot of ways.
12:24So how do you see the leadership evolving in this scenario?
12:27I mean, what skills do they need to develop apart from the traditional skills that they have been working with till now?
12:34See, I think today leadership or even a CEO post has an expiry date.
12:40You know, I think this concept of if you've risen through the ranks and you've come there and now you can stay there is gone.
12:47I think almost it's like a revalidation every month because you could be having a good innings and one or two strategic missteps and you're out.
12:56Because the world is very competitive.
12:58So I think clearly for leadership today, a 360 degree approach is very, very important.
13:05And that means you need to be a little bit of a drone.
13:08Now, not drone, drone.
13:10And I'm saying drone because most people think, oh, I need a holistic point of view.
13:13I need to be at 30,000 feet.
13:1530,000 feet doesn't work anymore.
13:17Drone is just hovering above a little bit about everybody else, but having a very sharp eye to be able to zoom into whatever you want to do from time to time.
13:28So I think a drone approach and a 360 degree approach is very much needed for leaders.
13:33Second, I think the time to be problem solvers as leaders is gone.
13:37We need to be problem spotters.
13:39And I mean that because I think today, if you look at some of the younger generation, because they've got a fresh outlook of life, I just find them to be a little bit more edgy, a little bit more scrappy, and definitely more what I would call problem spotters than problem solvers.
13:56Because today, the world is moving so fast that by the time you actually get into a problem, figuring out how to solve it, a new problem has arisen.
14:04But leadership is going to get quantified where if you can watch a train or a truck that's going to hit you around the corner.
14:11So a problem spotting element is veryâŠ
14:13And it's not easy, because for that you need an entire team, a culture and an ethos, which is slightly edgy, definitely not complacent.
14:23And where reinvention and innovationâŠ
14:26Because the minute you start from a particular scale and grow, the first thing you need to do is corporatize.
14:31Then you need to build in some sense of process.
14:33Of course you do.
14:34But if 90% is process and 10% is innovation, you're dead.
14:38Because you're not going to be able to spot the problems and you're only going to be in problem-solving mode.
14:44Right.
14:45So industries, of course, are reshaping themselves in various ways because of technology and you talked about leadership.
14:52But when it comes to the middle rung of the executives, the people in their 30s and 40s who may not be in their leadership positions, how do they kind of remain relevant and thrive?
15:07Firstly, I think it's a myth that a designation defines leadership.
15:13I mean, if you're a manager managing five people reporting to you, you're a leader.
15:17Because that's the big beginning step.
15:19Just because you have 5,000 people reporting to you doesn't mean you're a bigger leader or less leader or a leader.
15:24You've got two people reporting to you, you're a leader.
15:27Two people are looking to you for inspiration, for guidance, for mentorship, for clarity, for instructions to go where you want to go.
15:35So I think this concept that you need to be at a particular age and that's when you're going to be there.
15:40And look, I think today you've seen that.
15:43You've seen dynamic companies, new world companies with larger market cap than 80-year-old companies.
15:49And they're all in their 20s and their 30s.
15:52So I don't think this age is a definition of that.
15:55It's the approach and the attitude.
15:56And I think we need to understand the minute we have a few people reporting to us, in some form or the other, we are a leader.
16:04Normally, people think leader means you're at the top.
16:07Nobody's at the top.
16:08I mean, even a CEO has a board.
16:10If they don't have a board that's compliant, then they have shareholders.
16:14Somewhere down the line, the accountability is always there in that context.
16:19Right.
16:20But AI does come with a lot of challenges.
16:23So, for example, I'll just talk about the media industry very shortly, very briefly.
16:28That content, now you have chat GPTs and AI is writing articles for you and all of that, which, of course, we are not using because Google will not allow it and all of that.
16:39No, it's also very threatening.
16:41Exactly.
16:42So I was coming to that, that it becomes somewhere very threatening, especially for the freshers who are learning how to write and all of that.
16:48And the freshers are also smarter than maybe the earlier generation, I would say, most of them.
16:56And they are looking for these shortcuts.
16:58So what happens to the skill management and the overall, you know, how you develop yourself as a professional?
17:05Well, firstly, I think the key word is acceptance.
17:09It's here.
17:10So it's not like you're going on a morning walk and the road is dug so you have the option to cross the road and walk somewhere else.
17:17It's there.
17:18Wherever you go, you are not going to be able to cross the road and avoid the modernization of technology.
17:24So I think the first step is accept.
17:26Once you accept that, you'll figure out how, firstly, when you accept it, the threat goes away.
17:32And the mindset becomes how do I use it behind me instead of as an adversary.
17:37But sometimes it becomes a challenge for the leaders also.
17:40No, I don't think the challenge is in your mind.
17:42The challenge is not.
17:43As I said, the challenge, if you've already stuck with that situation, if you don't have an optionality and you have to accept it,
17:49because not having it is 10 times worse than having it.
17:53So if you have accepted that option, that the tailwind that it'll give me will be more than the headwind,
17:59you'll start approaching it by saying, how do I embrace it and how do I go forward?
18:04And I have to overemphasize that part because otherwise, look, we've had broadband, we've had internet,
18:09we've had many, many things and many technologies that have come in.
18:13Now, today, the hyperness on AI has only come about because, firstly, it's just two alphabets,
18:19so it's easier to keep pronouncing and keep putting out with everybody.
18:22Second, in the herd mentality, the financial investment community comes in because there's a form of losing out.
18:30So you want to fund anyone who says the word AI.
18:33So even in EdTech, you know, five years back when some of the other companies that burnt up a lot of money
18:38and now are nowhere and EdTech raised money, they used the word tech.
18:42Today, if they're to start the world, they'd use AI.
18:45So I think those are fads that go there.
18:47But fundamentally, the power of what we are looking at with artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics,
18:55which is how it all started, right?
18:57Because all of us looking at data and then we figured out, my God, we can analyze data in a different manner.
19:02And then you went to the next level of it.
19:04So first, I think it's just acceptance.
19:06Second, there is at least 60 to 70 percent to gain and 30 to 40 percent where you need to plan for what you need to do.
19:15And I think if you look at those elements, it's very, very supportive.
19:19Third, it is not personally, I don't think it's going to displace jobs in general.
19:25At that moment in time, it can displace a job.
19:28But today, you should understand that at least 40 percent of what you are doing, you don't need to do,
19:35if you can use some of this technology, the entire element of technology.
19:39What does that mean?
19:40It means even if you're spending a 14-hour day, maybe you can spend an 11-hour day.
19:43But even if you want to spend a 14-hour day, it'll be a much more high-quality day.
19:47You'll be smarter in the conference room, in the meeting room.
19:50Your possible growth and promotion could be higher.
19:53If you can manage to figure out how to harness it, the opportunity for you to leverage your salary or your promotion is going to be much higher.
20:03That's how I think it needs to be looked at.
20:05Right.
20:06So, coming to your journey, like when you launched Upgrad, online learning was new in India and it was still evolving.
20:16So, how has your perspective over lifelong learning over the years has changed in that aspect?
20:23See, I think when I started my media business, that was a time it was just very nascent.
20:29Nobody could even pronounce what media and entertainment was.
20:33The first media investment that came in was from Bobak Pinkers who invested in our company way back.
20:38And at that time, we had the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the FIPB, and they didn't know how to give an approval in media and entertainment.
20:45So, we got that investment approval under tourism because we were doing airline in-flight programming for people.
20:51So, that's how nascent that business was there.
20:54Today, I think when you're looking at this whole space, we look at education in a very formal calendar event of school and college.
21:02So, the forever learning part is an acceptance that almost every two to three to four years, you're going to have to reinvent yourself.
21:11And it's not going to come casually.
21:13And it's not going to come only with TED talks.
21:15And it's not going to come only with consuming YouTube.
21:18You're going to have to do much more.
21:19It's an interactive process.
21:21You need to be a specialist and a generalist in many ways in which you want to do that.
21:26So, how can AI play a role in higher education and skilling in that sense?
21:31So, I think AI plays a role in both ways, right?
21:33One is the tools on how we're going to get skilled.
21:36So, today when we have an online classroom, we have 600 people in our classroom.
21:40And most people say, my God, 600?
21:42How do you ever get attention?
21:44A class or a cohort with 600 people learning data analytics is 10 times more exciting than the 60 people class.
21:52Because, firstly, because of the technology, you post a question and you've got 19 different points of view.
22:00The professor or the faculty doesn't even reply until much later.
22:04You've got peer-to-peer learning that happens incredibly.
22:07And I think today the biggest change that's going to happen with online education is the power of peer-to-peer learning.
22:13Which I think we don't get the power that online is not flaky because the peer-to-peer learning is the learning of tomorrow.
22:21It's gone are the days where only faculty and teachers are going to teach you.
22:25It's very critical and important in the formal part of your education, which is school and college.
22:30But after that, your best learning today is peer-to-peer.
22:34We're sitting here having a conversation.
22:35Each of us are listening to somebody else's views.
22:39So, for us at Upgrad, the focus is how do we capitalize peer-to-peer learning on a global scale?
22:45So, again, somewhere, you know, the need for teachers and professors, do you think it will die down or eventuallyâŠ
22:54Every single person in this room is a teacher, a coach and a mentor.
22:59Nobody just asked us.
23:01Nobody gave it to us.
23:03And it wasn't a profession that's been glamorized yet in this country.
23:07Start-up is now glamorized, but actual teachers is not as glamorized as a sector, unfortunately.
23:14But that optionality you have.
23:16Before that, all you would do is you would have a guest lecture.
23:18I would come here and do that.
23:19Or somebody went to IIM and gave a guest lecture and they feltâŠ
23:22Today, you can actually be your own professor, teacher, mentor, specialist in what you want to do.
23:29Down to the lowest specialist.
23:31It's not just general marketing.
23:33You can zero in on any single aspect of anything you want to do and be able to go there.
23:38So, I think that optionality is incredible.
23:42Right.
23:43But job creation is a problem in India right now.
23:47But anyway, I'm sure AI will create more kinds of jobs perhaps.
23:51Yes.
23:52Look, job creation is not a problem only in India.
23:54I think it's a problem everywhere else.
23:55Yeah.
23:56People who couldn't have mass deportation in the US, notwithstanding the controversy there.
23:59Yeah.
24:00If they didn't feel they needed to solve their own problems or what they necessarily needed to do.
24:04But I think the ability for self-employment is very high.
24:09I can only tell you in our foundation where we look at skilling.
24:12Today, I want to just give one example here.
24:14When we are training and skilling youth and young people or professions in their 30 that are taking a course here in skilling.
24:22What I see in rural India, what I see in urban India, what I see in a country like Vietnam, all three, we have a target audience and group.
24:30It's quite interesting.
24:32Here, I think most people are in this element of FOMO where I need to do it.
24:37Maybe I need a certification.
24:38How is it going to help me with my job?
24:40What's my promotion?
24:41What's my job?
24:42In rural India, where we're skilling about 60,000 youth for different countries.
24:48There, everyone thought masonry, carpentry, painting would be the thing.
24:51The number one pursuit for skilling there today is hospitality, right?
24:57So, even in rural, because the highways are being built, there's dabas coming across.
25:02So, the entire perception even there and their aspiration has changed.
25:06But when they look at it, they look at it in an extremely different way.
25:10Five years back, all those 60,000 people that we trained, we needed to figure out how to get them into a job.
25:16And they needed a job 200 kilometers in their radius.
25:19Because if you go out of that, they haven't stepped out of their village ever and they used to come running back.
25:23And there used to be mass exodus.
25:25A little bit you saw of it during the COVID era.
25:28Today, 50% of them, we don't need to find them a job.
25:31They're self-employed.
25:32They're saying, leave it to me, I'll figure it out.
25:35So, I think that DNA is changing, but needs to change even more.
25:39That sense of entitlement, that if I paid for something, somebody needs to give me a job, is not there.
25:46It's just not going to be there.
25:47Okay.
25:48Basically, the nature of employment is changing big time.
25:51But you were talking about your experience with the rural background and all of that.
25:56Your Swadesh Foundation has done a lot of rural empowerment.
26:00What has been your biggest takeaway in terms of the context that we are talking today?
26:06Yeah.
26:07I mean, we named Swadesh after a movie that we made long back, which at that time wasn't commercially successful, which is why we called it before its time called Swadesh, where Shah Rukh Khan goes, is working at NASA, comes back, meets his Nani Ma, falls in love, but also lights the bulb in rural India.
26:25And I think that's the motto of our vision in Swadesh, is to light the bulb in sort of rural India.
26:32Just two things I would say there, two learnings.
26:35One, I think we started off at a very, very early stage.
26:39So, I think this concept of philanthropy, it's a pretty big word.
26:42It's a word where you need to have gray hair, you need to have money in your bank, and you need to be able to cut a check.
26:47All three are actually archaic and not valid.
26:50So, I think when we did it, and I remember that, because at our first board meeting, people said, but you're not making money, how can you start figuring out what you're going to do on that?
26:58And we said, we'll figure that out.
27:00So, I think what you started as small today, I think is very, very essential, because that giving back balances you.
27:08And again, it's an antidote for retirement.
27:11I can guarantee you it's an antidote for retirement.
27:13Because when you're doing something in the not-for-profit space, you cannot think of retirement.
27:18You just cannot think of it, because there isn't a timeline that you'll say, I was doing this, or I was running an orphanage, or I was working with a school, or I was giving back, and I can stop that tomorrow.
27:27You'll have to just do it till you do it, till you can physically, mentally, emotionally, passionately do it, you will be doing it.
27:35So, it's very, very empowering.
27:37The second one is, we all think that the 600 million people in rural have different aspirations from the urban.
27:45Very untrue.
27:46And that's really why, what's exciting for us, because we want to spend time.
27:50For us, it's an execution foundation, where we spend a lot of time.
27:53My wife and I, Zarina and I go there, tomorrow we're there, and on the weekend we're there.
27:57So, with the community, because then you're reinventing yourself and thinking a lot there.
28:02So, aspiration levels in rural India are the same.
28:06The irony is, at the kids and at the school level, and that was part of my motivation for actually being part of founding UpGrad,
28:14was nobody asked them in rural India, what do you want to do when you grow up?
28:18All of us here are extremely blessed and fortunate.
28:20We're talking about our wealth and how to multiply it.
28:23There, nobody even asked them, what do you want to do when you grow up?
28:25And the parents won't dare to ask them that, because nobody asked them that before that.
28:29And even if the child is going to reply, they don't know what to do with it,
28:32because they may not have the economic wherewithal to satisfy their curiosity, which is why they don't.
28:37So, somebody wants to be a teacher, a policeman, or a fireman.
28:40That is changing substantially.
28:43And the third one, I would say, is when you're giving back, the other person receiving it is not necessarily behold.
28:50The first four years, we failed miserably because we set our own targets.
28:54But we didn't buy in with the community.
28:56We want to build toilets.
28:57They said, come, build your toilets.
28:59And after five years and a lot of failures, it wasn't failures because we were still giving back and creating impact,
29:05but failures in our model, we realized that we needed to have them to have skin in the game.
29:10So, when you think we're giving something to somebody who can't afford it, even a tribal person today,
29:15if you're building a toilet, for the normal people, we ask them to contribute 2,000,
29:20a tribal person will contribute 200.
29:22But that 200 rupees is the reason why he will use that toilet versus keeping it as a storage and saying,
29:29I don't need a toilet.
29:30I used to always do open defecation, so I'm going to carry on doing that.
29:34Okay.
29:35So, wrapping up this very interesting conversation, I have a last question to you,
29:39saying that you have taken risks and you have always been ahead of the curve,
29:46whether it was the media industry, EdTech.
29:48Now, what's the next on your line?
29:50What's the next big challenge or bet that you are ready to take?
29:54No, I have not planned anything more.
29:57I think there's incredible work in what I need to do in the skilling and workforce development,
30:03and I'm extremely committed and passionate for it.
30:06I think the not-for-profit is a very strong way.
30:09It's a permanent one.
30:10There is no expiry date on that.
30:12And I think I've been blessed enough, as I said right in the beginning, with choices and the ability to say no.
30:18So, sometime the bug of storytelling is always there, and I think that's why, as a passion,
30:24I continue to do a little bit of movies, but only as a passion.
30:28Okay.
30:29We are looking forward to Swadesh-like movies, of course, which was aâŠ
30:33Maybe it was not an instant hit, but it has made a mark in everyone's mind,
30:37and everyone remembers it, I think.
30:39Thank you so much, Mr. Roni Sruwala.
30:41It was a pleasure hosting you today.
30:48Thanks, Mr. Roni Sruwala.
30:53Thank you, Dr. Roni Sruwala.
31:13We are looking forward to sharing the your project.
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