Tech Uncensored - An Altitude Accelerator Podcast

Hessie Jones

Hi there. I'm Hessie Jones. Welcome back to tech Uncensored. We are at collision and I'm happy today to speak to the founder of admission overseas. His name is Himanshu Barthwal. Thank you for joining me today.

Himanshu

Thank you, Hessie. Thank you for waiting.

Hessie Jones

No problem. I'm interested in talking a little bit more about your journey to Ed Tech and what you're doing today. So maybe let's start with what is admission overseas and where did the idea start from?

Himanshu

Well, admission overseas is a brand which recruits international students, so we've got the parent companies called admission overseas and then we've got a brand called admit offer that's an online portal. It's a SaaS platform with generative AI technology for international student counseling and we empower recruiters around the world who recruit students, international students to bring to Canada, US, Australia and UK. My professional journey started 20 years ago as an international student recruitment agent in India and with a passion to help students explore educational opportunities abroad and guiding them towards fulfilling careers, I have recruited more than 25,000 students as an agent. For universities and colleges. There I understood that there are, you know, challenges faced by both the students and recruitment agents in terms of navigating the admission process which is reliant heavily on manual research and overwhelming complexities. So, we launched Admit Offer and innovative SaaS which solves the admission process, increases admission success rates and promotes diversity in colleges and universities.

Hessie Jones

What are you seeing today in terms of demand like overtime? Is there increasing demand from perspective students to actually go to school abroad?

Himashu

Well, the demand is increasing as of date there are 6,000,000 international students, who study abroad each year? This market is going to rise to 9 million students by the end of this decade. By 2050 a billion students will graduate just from Asia and Africa, which is going to be the largest source countries for destination countries where to study abroad. A billion students in 2050 from Asia and Africa and more than 50% of them will be looking at studying abroad. So, this market is on a rise with liberal immigration and welcoming student policies. This market is going to explode like anything.

Hessie

OK, so you said to me which I found interesting that you were going to be the Pepsi to the current competitor. That's probably the largest out there. So why don't you explain a little bit?

Himanshu

Well, in terms of aggregators to bring an intellect platform for streamlining the admission process, we have very limited competitors in the market. But the nearest competitor we have is heavily funded and they have been in the market for certain years, and they have done quite well. So, congratulations to them. So, they are Coca-Cola and there is no Pepsi. So, we want to be Pepsi.

Hessie

Do you do? You feel there's room? There's definitely room for a Pepsi in this market.

Himanshu

Well, the Coca-Cola has not grabbed even 1% of the market share. So yes, there is ample room for a lot of aggregators. It is a crowded marketplace and that works in our favor to be a central institution aggregator with intellectual platform. Where we streamline the admission process, bringing the important information for admissions matches students' admissibility with programs.

Hessie Jones

So let's talk a little bit about what your differentiator is, because you talked about this intellectual property. So what are you doing differently that sets you really apart from what they're doing?

Himanshu

We are the first ones to bring generative AI student counselling to empower the recruiters. So basically, if you see any recruiter, there are over 100,000 recruiters across the globe and every recruiter will spend or invest on counselors and counselors will be their first person to meet these students or counsel the students or advise the students. We are the first generative AI international Student Advisor, which is going to empower the recruitment agents, so that is our major product. And then apart from our proprietary algorithms, streamline processing automation end to end process, we are giving personalized service to the recruitment agents wherein we take care of their visa filing and visa processing through our licensed agents. So, we have a solid product. We are becoming the becoming the agents’ preferred choice.

Hessie Jones

That's great. So, you're actually making the agents job easier as well as the students and. And so from, I guess an efficiency standpoint, how much are you saving time from a student as well as the agents themselves?

Himanshu

We are saving more than 80% of their time. We are giving them more than 99% accuracy in terms of getting them admitted into universities and colleges where their previous academics match with their programs of admissibility. In terms of who are our major clients, our major stakeholders are universities and colleges where we bring diversity of students and on the other side, these are recruiters. Recruiters can be recruitment agents, school counselors, anybody who wants to become an entrepreneur, who wants to get into this industry. But we are really following the ethics of the industry, we want to make sure that they are legitimate. They are licensed, they have, you know, the paperwork is done, and they're not fly by night operator.

Hessie Jones

You are also helping to fulfill the demand for the shortage of certain workers here in Canada. Can you talk a little bit about that? I think it was in the healthcare space.

Himanshu

Yes, we are working in the healthcare sector very. We are really focused on that. We understand that Canada needs a lot of healthcare workers, especially personal care attendants, nurses, support workers. So, we are working in the Philippine market in India, Kerala especially that is South India and Nepal to. You know, fill the shortage of healthcare workers. I live in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and I am working specially I'm working there to fill in the gap there. I know there's a huge shortage over there and we have already started. We in fact run a cohort of nursing program near Montreal in a place called Laval where the Government board called Sir Wilfred Laurier School board, where the college called CDC Point View. In fact, we brought more than 100 students to that college as qualified nurses who are going to be licensed practical nurse in Canada very soon.

Hessie

How happy are your clients right now?

Himanshu

My clients are happy. There are some challenges as international students when they reach here, they face challenges, homesickness. There are other people to guide them. There are others on shore, you know, agents somewhere, you know, they tell them to change colleges. Some private colleges. That is a major challenge in the market. Right now, we have seen recent students suffering because of lot of. Forgeries happening, you know, fake promises happening. So yes, we also see those challenges with our student clients. But we are there to guide them. We show them the proper way and we make sure that they succeed in their life.

Hessie

One last question, where do you see yourself going in the next two to five years? Where is Admission Overseas going to be?

Himanshu

We are going to be a leader in the international student recruitment industry. We are going to bring diversity of students to Canada and our aim is to bring more than 50,000 students in next 5 years from Latin America, Africa and Asia to top Canadian institutions and public and post-secondary colleges.

Hessie

Perfect. Thank you for coming to see me today. Take care.