In this episode of Zero to Infinity, Rajat Agarwal and Chandrasekhar Venugopal sit down with Vivek Sinha, second-time founder and CEO of Emversity, to unpack one of India’s most urgent and least-discussed problems:
👉 Why are millions of young Indians still unemployable after 16 years of education?
👉 What will it take to build a truly job-ready workforce?
👉 And why might the biggest opportunity in education lie in the “grey-collar” economy, not tech or test prep?
Vivek takes us deep into the realities of India’s higher education system, the failure of legacy institutes to prepare students for real-world roles, and the massive talent gaps in healthcare, hospitality, construction, and manufacturing.
He also breaks down Emversity’s groundbreaking model:
On-the-job learning (not online, not offline)
Industry-backwards curriculum co-designed with employers
Earn-while-you-learn degrees that effectively cost students ₹0
VR simulation labs and real-world skill training
50%+ organic student acquisition driven purely by outcomes
If you care about India’s future workforce, social mobility, or building meaningful businesses at scale, this conversation is a must-watch.
01:47 - Introduction to the Z47 Podcast
02:52 - What really happened to India’s EdTech boom?
03:25 - The three faces of EdTech: daycare, test prep & higher education
06:24 - Intent and Outcomes: the two pillars of real education
10:51 - From disruption to discipline: building an education business that lasts
15:47 - Emversity’s goal: make every student employable, not just enrolled
18:59 - Bridging academia and industry through tech + training
22:43 - Why Emversity bets on India’s grey-collar workforce
27:55 - Earn while you learn: the zero-cost degree model
31:24 - Tech-enabled, execution-driven: how Emversity scales smart
37:27 - The long road ahead: can Emversity educate a million students
40:30 - Changing lives, one job at a time
42:00 - Building India’s next-gen education infrastructure
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