Sunil Malhotra

Learning Forward

Episode 4 of Where Passion Meets Education (WPME) host Sandeep Dutt in conversation with Sunil Malhotra.

Sunil Malhotra’s entrepreneurial experience spans Design, Manufacturing and Information Technology. A thought leader in Design Thinking and Exponential Transformation, Sunil founded Ideafarms to bring industrial design to ICT.

On the 7th of July 2024 Sunil joined us at My Good School and talked about his latestbook YOGAi, a result of the author’s professional experience, embellished by interactions with Dr. Karan Singh, Ervin Laszlo, Satish Kumar, John Maeda, Salim Ismail and other luminaries, making it a well-rounded treatise on the interplays of Yoga and Ai. When the dust settles on the hype around Ai, the world is likely to remain wildly unpredictable. Use this book as a starting point for understanding the human quest for truth, and creating technologies wisely to make our lives richer and the world a better place.

"You teach best what you most need to learn." ~Richard Bach

Sunil and Sandeep talk about learning, thinking and growing up. Eastern philosophy and Western thought, how the two work together in the world today, and why Indian philosophy is way advanced. He believes that knowledge must be free to flow and help build a world of higher-order thinking, unlike in the West, where ownership of knowledge is the key to their profiteering and intellectual property is treated as the wealth of people and organisations. The oldest Upnishads may be as old as 8th century BC, and this ancient reservoir of knowledge will always be the core of any learning for civilisations to come, their message and understanding has not been truly captured in the unlimited number of books and western literature.

The Upanishads present a vision of an interconnected universe with a single, unifying principle behind the apparent diversity in the cosmos, any articulation of which is called brahman. Within this context, the Upanishads teach that brahman resides in the atman, the unchanging core of the human individual. - Wikipedia

Starting from Upanishads, to schools, how children learn and what is the way forward for education the podcast in a matter of 15 plus mintutes touches on the core of the human learning systems as they exist today and what lies ahead. We need to unlearn first, and not be hostage to the industrial age school system, which much like an industrial proecss indoctrinates and robs every indivudal of #JoyOfLearning.

Design as a philosophy, as a tool, is with every individual, a true designer just delves within, we design our own lives and move on. What bubbles up, passion needs to come within yourself, mind is all powerful, free ourselves and use the mind as an insturment, true passion evolves.

Freeing the mind, is that education? This pushed Sunil into another world and the coversation is all yours to listen to!

‘Victims of education’, the problem is that the education system uses words, that only gives us literacy. You need to learn for life, we must demolish the entire school system.

Talking about teaching and learning, does learning come before teaching? It obviously does and Sunil corroborates how. From mother tongue and perfect communication before going to school to the vagaries of the system, there is a need to unlearn. Signs of optimism and why Sunil wrote the book YOGAi.

"We can’t change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

YOGAi makes Ai approachable by contextualising the evolution of technology. These technologies have crept upon us, even without our noticing, and yet when it comes to leveraging them, we still have a tendency to shy away. Technologies with broad, general applications in their early stages take an inordinate amount of time to emerge, but eventually their power becomes self-evident, and they take hold over society in disruptive ways.Another goal of YOGAi is to make you accessible to yourself by contextualising the evolution of the human mind. Attention is brought to Yoga, narrowly understood as physical exercises from India, which in fact are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Yoga serves as a powerful tool for self-discovery, enabling individuals to explore their innermost selves and cultivate a deeper understanding of their identities, purpose, and connections to the world. Ultimately, the convergence of Yoga and Ai represents a pathway towards realising human potential and creating a more equitable and sustainable world for all.

Let us togther cocreate space for passion and learning to blossom, this would be the true meaning of education, and we will be fair to the young people whose future is at stake in the hands of the policy makers and institutions that are more business models and less about #JoyOfLearning.

Good Schools India Journal is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thanks for reading Good Schools India Journal!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gsi.in/subscribe