Brands
Dentsu Webchutney urges us to rethink the way we look at grades
MUMBAI: Dentsu Webchutney, the digital arm of Dentsu Aegis Network, and KAEdu- an educational consultancy company, have collaborated to introduce the progressive report card: a triumphant redesign of the linear school report card, that calls for a paradigm shift in the perception of school level education in India today.
The agency’s strategic think tanks used human-centered design thinking to first identify the inherent biases in the structure of the report card as we know it – reflecting a societal preference and pre-occupation with ‘mainstream subjects’ like languages, mathematics and science-based subjects – that have traditionally been considered true markers of a child’s intelligence, employability, and life-long success.
Dentsu Webchutney’s research teams found that as our knowledge about childhood development has expanded, the need of the hour is to prepare today’s scholar base for an emerging world in which they will hold a host of jobs that don’t even exist as yet. Research has further indicated that success in these areas will require a preparedness that goes much beyond traditional academic preparation, to that which hinges on a healthy emotional, psychological and social development of the child. More and more educational institutions are seeing the need and merit for a curriculum which supports all rounded development with every subject stream becoming equally important. The creative development of the progressive report card stems from this fundamental insight.
Introducing the concept, Dentsu Webchutney senior creative director PG Aditya mentions, “Design, for all its disruptive qualities, has not been applied to schools beyond the inclusion of interactive boards. We’ve gone one step further to apply it to the heart of the most important success parameter of a student: the report card. No parent, teacher, or school administrator is going to see a report card the same way again.”
In partnership with KA EduAssociates, the progressive report card shares a rich design story. The circular design of the report card nudges parents to distribute their attention equally to all subjects. The circle symbolises unity and equality and draws from a well-established theory of perception.
Dentsu Webchutney creative director of design Ashwin Palkar says, “We’re fortunate to work in an industry where diversity and creativity is valued. Our goal is to reach education boards to drive mass adoption. We want to reduce any friction that exists between bright, independent futures of children and dogmatic beliefs around academics of their parents.”
The team has also released a website- www.theprogressivereportcard.com, through which interested parents and schools can sign up to be part of the initiative. The idea also has an ‘open-source’ side to it: schools that wish to customise the progressive report to their curriculum will receive an instructional design kit which helps them achieve the same.
So far, the progressive report card has been piloted across schools in eight states and aims to replace the traditional report card in at least one school in every Indian state, during the academic year 2018-19.
Brands
Tessolve lands a semiconductor veteran to drive its next big push
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, who started his career at ISRO and has spent 35 years building chips and companies, joins the Bengaluru-based firm as president and chief operating officer
BENGALURU: Tessolve has never been shy about its ambitions. The Bengaluru-based engineering services firm already counts 18 of the world’s top 20 semiconductor companies among its clients, employs more than 3,500 engineers across 12 countries, and last year pocketed a $150m investment from TPG. Now it has hired the executive it believes can turn those assets into something bigger. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, a 35-year semiconductor veteran who once built satellite payloads for ISRO and has since scaled engineering organisations across three continents, joins as president and chief operating officer, effective immediately.
THE MAN AND THE MANDATE
The appointment is, by any measure, a serious hire. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu comes to Tessolve after senior leadership stints at HCL Technologies, Altran and Wipro, where he managed large profit-and-loss portfolios and oversaw cross-regional teams. Over the course of his career, he has been instrumental in bringing more than 1,000 new products to market across the high-tech, energy and manufacturing verticals. Before the private sector claimed him, he began his working life as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation, contributing to research and development in charge-coupled device technology and satellite payloads, a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
In his new role, he will lead Tessolve’s global growth strategy: expanding its engineering capabilities, deepening customer relationships and accelerating innovation across semiconductor and high-performance computing domains. The brief is broad, but the context is specific. Tessolve operates in the $550 billion global semiconductor market, and its recent moves, the acquisition of Germany’s Dream Chip Technologies and the TPG funding round, have sharpened both its reach and its expectations.
Srini Chinamilli, co-founder and chief executive of Tessolve, is characteristically direct about why Ravi Kumar Chirugudu was the choice:
“As we scale our global semiconductor and system engineering capabilities, Ravi’s appointment marks an important step forward. As global semiconductor demand continues to accelerate across industries, it is creating significant opportunities across the semiconductor lifecycle, from design, packaging, validation and systems integration. Ravi’s deep knowledge and leadership in this ecosystem brings the right mix of industry expertise, customer connect and execution capability, which will play a key role in strengthening our position as a trusted global engineering partner and reinforcing our market leadership.”
THE NEW ARRIVAL SPEAKS
Ravi Kumar Chirugudu, for his part, frames the move in terms of timing and culture, two factors that veteran executives tend to weigh as heavily as title or compensation:
“I am happy to join Tessolve at a time when the industry is rapidly evolving towards more complex, AI-driven systems. What stands out to me is its strong people-first culture and its commitment to bringing value to its customers. The strength of its global team, combined with its deep expertise in semiconductor innovation and next-generation product engineering, creates a solid foundation to build differentiated, scalable solutions. I look forward to working closely with the team to drive strategic growth and strengthen its role in shaping the global semiconductor ecosystem.”
The reference to AI-driven systems is not incidental. The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a structural reshaping, driven by the insatiable compute demands of artificial intelligence. For engineering services firms like Tessolve, which offers end-to-end capabilities from silicon design to packaged parts and invests in high-performance computing, high-speed interfaces, photonics and 5G, the moment is both an opportunity and a test. The company says it is well positioned to capture the next wave of industry growth. Ravi Kumar Chirugudu is now the person who has to prove it.
He came in from outer space, literally, and spent three decades learning how the semiconductor industry works from the inside out. Now Tessolve is betting that accumulated knowledge can help it cross the next frontier. In the $550 billion global chip market, the gap between ambition and execution is measured in engineering hours and leadership quality. Tessolve has just gone shopping for both.
