Mumbai: Sunstone, one of India’s leading higher education startups with a presence in over 35 cities across 50+ institutions, started a global immersion program for its students in Dubai. Aiming to impart experiential learning and help them gain real-world knowledge of the startup world, these students had the opportunity to learn from industry experts.
From September 2 to September 8, this 6-day program included visiting highlights such as the world’s largest single-site solar park, Ferrari World, Burj Khalifa and Desert Safari. Leading the startup were Ajay Sajnani, director, Interiors R US, Puneet Jeet, director, PJ International, Aditya Sinha, business leader, Mastercard and Gautam Goenka, director and producer in Dubai.
Speaking on the show, Sunstone co-founder Piyush Nangru says: “With the industry and trends changing dramatically, it becomes necessary for platforms like us to give our students the opportunity to improve their skills and grow. For this reason, with the realization of this global immersion program we wanted to give students a better and more practical knowledge of the economic side of the world. The program has helped students acquire real-life skills, build a broader curriculum and broaden their horizons of versatile economies. This will make them ready to work and more prepared for the future.
While this program aimed to equip students with a working knowledge of local business practices through face-to-face interaction with key stakeholders, this additional exposure to seeing a different culture and understanding how work culture works at the global was the real learning for our 14 students”.
One of the students, Gandla Saicharan, says BIMS; “This was an eye opener for us as it gave us the opportunity to interact with the best. Growth and learning can never happen in isolation and I believe Dubai has been a model for economies. I am very grateful to Sunstone for giving me the opportunity to enhance our learning and experience.The program was a breakthrough in understanding the market and economy of another country and helped us to understand practically how other countries work economies. Meetings with industry leaders were motivating and helped us understand the industry even better.”
Sunstone aims to conduct more such global immersion programs each year to provide students with industry knowledge and experience. The cost of the program was partially borne by the platform which constantly strives to bridge the gap between industry and academia and provide students with #EducationThatWorks.