“Social entrepreneur is someone who makes a social impact in society with their entrepreneurial skills and does not wait for someone else to bring the change. Instead, they themselves decided to be the change”, defines Ranjan Mistry, known for developing an entrepreneurial atmosphere in Bihar, merely at the age of 23.
Ranjan is the face behind Campus Varta, India’s first edtech media and discovery platform enabling and connecting students from rural India with the corporate world. “बिहार का #Social_Entrepreneur हूँ। बदलते बिहार की मैं Ek नयी पहचान हूँ“ (I am a social entrepreneur from Bihar, I am one of the new faces of changing Bihar)- Ranjan commits to the vow.
Besides, to his credit, he is also the founding member of Patna University Incubation Hub (PUI-Hub), the first person from the state of Bihar to have been nominated for Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 as a semi-finalist, and the youngest advisory board member of Bihar Mahila Udyog Sangh (BMUS).
In an exclusive conversation with LifeBeyondNumbers, Ranjan gave candid answers about his struggle, vision, and plans ahead.
A Hard-Earned Education
Born and brought up in a lower-middle-class family, Ranjan hails from a small village named Chakauri, surrounded by small hills from all four sides in Gaya, Bihar. His father has been a carpenter and farmer by profession and mother, a home-maker. Though a beautiful location, it is unfortunately known for being Naxal affected. The only school, located in the village, had been without a single teacher willing to stay there, before 2016.
“I completed my basic schooling from Jesus Christ High School, Patna which was initially started with four students including myself in one of them. I completed my 10th from New Delhi Public School, North S.K. Puri Patna, and 11th from D.A.V Public School, BSEB Colony, but unfortunately, I was dropped out by the school for not being able to pay the school fees. Finally, I completed my 12th grade as a topper from Bhuwaneshwari Dayal High School under the Bihar Board”, recalls Ranjan.
Despite cracking several engineering entrance exams and qualifying for prestigious engineering colleges like NIT Patna, MIT Pune, and LNCT Bhopal, his dream of becoming a computer scientist was stalled owing to his financial helplessness. Though he did not manage to receive his formal education in engineering, acquiring knowledge in the field from alternative sources was no bar. “I never wanted to drop out of my studies, but unfortunately I had to due to the lack of financial aid, though I found an alternate way to learn and educate myself”, he says.
“I have grasped more than 10 programming languages so far and have also worked as a software developer. But there was a time when I was not allowed to even touch computers in the school due to the extra fees applicable for taking the computer classes, that my father was unable to pay. I learned computers by working in numerous cyber cafes of Patna for at least 2 hours every day when I was in school”, he adds proudly yet confidently.
Vision & Motivation
His passion for the teaching profession and in the field of education flowered when he started giving tuition as a 6th standard student to pay for his English coaching classes. In fact, he also helped his classmates with studies in the absence of adequate teaching staff in the schools.
“I started taking classes in slum areas. So far, I have taught more than ten thousand students there. I also make sure regular inflow of teachers in 10 Naxal affected villages of Gaya, where teaching staffs are hardly willing to stay for more than 2-3 months”, reveals Ranjan.
Ranjan strikes the perfect balance between the field of education and the world of entrepreneurship and escalates it to the concept of start-ups, as a harbinger of positive change in society.
“Education is a necessity but it proves to be costlier for the common man. Entrepreneurship is a way to achieve skills and financial stability and start-ups allow the innovation, required to lead the country to a new height”, he believes.
Though a college drop-out himself, the dearth of a college degree had never hindered his journey. “Degree is just a piece of paper which helps you to prove that you have followed some rules to get educated while Education is the learning from different sources, conditions, situations from your life”, he says.
For him, people on the ground are the sources of true knowledge and impactful ideas. “Experience comes from fieldwork, not from big universities. I believe that once you are able to raise questions, you are going to be matured especially in the start-up Ecosystem and Industry. If you want to innovate or come up with impactful ideas, then start learning and educating yourself from local people, stay among them, and surely take a rural tour of different parts of India”, Ranjan strongly opines.
Campus Varta – Changing The Face Of Education in Rural Bihar
Ranjan founded the startup, recognized under start-up Bihar in 2017 and was joined by Shubhechya Sarkar as COO, the next year. They met at IIT-Kharagpur while participating in a technology-based entrepreneurship program (TEDP), sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
Campus Varta connects students with campuses across the country in crucial ways. It covers day-to-day campus news including information related to workshops, entrances, competitions, develops entrepreneurship cells, and incubation centers, and helps to digitize the rural institutes. As of now, it has reached among the students of at least 24 States, including Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh and has collaborated with eminent educational institutes across the country.
The team currently includes 10 core members alongside the co-founders and has about 100 ambassadors from various colleges and universities of the country. The team is responsible for collecting, curating, and collating all the campus-related information on the start-up platform. Despite putting up an efficient team together, team building has been one of the biggest challenges that he had faced at the beginning of the venture.
“We have currently reached around 3.5 million people, directly and indirectly, mostly penetrating rural India offline and then converting it into online mode. We have reached over 54 universities, 1,800 colleges, and 1,000 schools. Our monthly active user base is at around 40,000 as of now,” Ranjan says in his conversation with YourStory.
Though currently, the platform is available only in English, given the majority of its beneficiaries being more well-versed in their respective mother tongues, it soon plans to convert it into a multi-lingual user platform. Campus Varta generates revenue through paid advertisements, events, projects, and commissions. “I mostly generate revenues from my venture and also do some freelance work to manage my finances”, he discloses. For the financial year 2019, it has earned a total revenue of Rs.5 lakh.
Achievements
Ranjan’s primary focus has always been developing an entrepreneurial atmosphere in Bihar by enabling the youths and ecosystem and all his achievements contribute towards the aim.
- He proposed to open the Patna School of Economics on the baseline of the Delhi School of Economics and London School of Economics in 2015. After a month Chief Minister Nitish Kumar approved the proposal under a changed name, Patliputra School of Economics.
- He proposed to open the Incubation Center cum Entrepreneurship Cell at the university level in Bihar to develop an entrepreneurial ecosystem. These institutes/universities include Patna University, Purnea University, Central University of South Bihar, Patliputra University, Magadh University, ISM Patna, and IIM Bodhgaya among others.
- After more than 650 meetings at Patna University, his dream of opening Patna University Incubation Hub (PUI-Hub) came into reality. It is the first Incubation Center cum Entrepreneurship Cell in any university of Bihar.
- He has visited more than 800 villages across rural India, in order to gain deeper knowledge and ground experiences.
The Way Forward
Despite challenges and hurdles stemming from Bihar’s rigid socio-political system, Ranjan decided to withhold the vision of its development and strived to achieve the goal, keeping faith in the youth of the state.
“We have youths who think above caste and have a vision for the development of Bihar. The future of Bihar will be decided on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset. If there is hope, there is a will, and maybe entrepreneurship is one of those ways to bring development with the help of the new generations of youths,” he says optimistically.
Ranjan has decided to launch a program known as Nxt100 to help these youths into the path of self-reliance. He is about to sow the seeds of entrepreneurship among 100 budding entrepreneurs and mentoring them free of cost. He is about to provide them with networking opportunities, guidance, and resources.
“How does it matter if I am doing better than someone, all it matters is to do better for someone?’, is the philosophy of Ranjan’s life. An amalgamation of education and entrepreneurship gives him the window to contribute to the betterment of many students across the country.
He is well-aware of the responsibilities that come with his achievements but is determined to stay true to his commitment. After all, age is just a number, so far as Ranjan’s success story goes. Dedication, determination, and devotion are all that is required to persevere for the betterment of the society and the country at large.