Exclusive Interview with Ashish Fernando, Founder, and CEO, iSchoolConnect

By S G Rickman On Jun 22, 2022

Having a dream to study abroad is not uncommon, but when it comes to choosing the right university and a course that matches your outlook, it becomes a nightmare; not to speak of the plethora of procedures one has to go through to finally land in the desired course. iSchoolConnect is an AI-based online platform that has been helping students seeking admission overseas. It is an end-to-end platform where students can avail thorough assistance and complete the application process with just one click. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Ashish Fernando, Founder, and CEO, iSchoolConnect.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that your company offers.

Ashish Fernando, Founder, and CEO launched iSchoolConnect with a vision to democratize the global admissions market for graduate and undergraduate programs. Established in 2017 in the USA, iSchoolConnect is a Google Cloud partnered startup with a simple one-stop shop for anyone wanting to study abroad. ISchoolConnect’s AI-enabled platform makes the University Admissions process hassle-free, fun, and accessible to students around the globe. Our service suite comprises B2C and B2B offerings.

Our AI-enabled platform helps study abroad aspirants through their application process. The services include:

University Recommendation Engine: Our Recommendation Engine tool gives students personalized recommendations from a list of 300,000+ courses abroad.
Unified Application: Helps students complete their study abroad application process and apply to multiple universities with a single click.
Writing Mentor Tool: Analyze grammar, check plagiarism, and get quick content suggestions to write an impressive Essay or Statement of Purpose.
Video Interview Analyzer: Helps students prepare for interviews to ace their interviews with top universities and visa officers with our AI-based tools.
iSchoolPrep: Online test prep platform helps students prepare for GRE, GMAT, SAT, TOEFL, and IELTS. The courses are taught by top-scoring faculty who have also taken these tests. We provide unrivaled course materials and online resources. The classes are tailored to the student’s aptitude and progress.

On our B2B front, our product suite provides institutions with a better approach to growth. Our iSchool360 product suite includes:

Marketing Enablement:

Find student prospects at the top of the funnel and drive them to campus with your own fully-branded virtual experiences, all on the same platform

360 Degree Marketing Funnel Dashboard
Dedicated Microsite for Prospective Students
Push Marketing Tools – Essential
Website Conversational Chatbot – Essential
EDU Marketing Experts

Sales Enablement:

Turn prospective students into enrolled students by customizing your messaging utilizing our holistic analytics.

Monitor sales team performance
Get lead scoring and lead propensity metrics

Admission Enablement:

Optimize the relationship between you and your prospects by allowing them to directly book a time with you instantly. Scale your ability to recruit without losing the personal touch.

360 Degree Admissions Dashboard
Candidate Evaluation
In-country Representatives
Trained Admission Counsellors

24/7 Omni Channel Support

Provide personalized support via 360-degree interactions for better engagement

24/7 Conversational Assistant (Chatbot)
Engagement Data
Global Agency Support
24/7 Human Success Coaches
24/7 On-demand Support Staff

2. With what mission and objectives the company was set up? In short, tell us about your journey since the inception of the company?

iSchoolConnect was started with the mission and objective of democratizing access to higher education. Universities are vehicles of social mobility, and restricted access to institutions impedes our march towards an egalitarian world. Ashish Fernando, the CEO, and Founder of iSchoolConnect believes this is pivotal to keeping up the promise of equal opportunity.

After my MBA, the struggle to find the right B school abroad inspired me to launch iSchoolConnect. Our investors & mentors stepped in, assigning their best ML engineers to work with us. The first 2 years challenged us to identify the right tools and build them from scratch.

iSchoolConnect was founded to become the world’s most popular beloved student mobility solution and the mission of making the admissions process globally accessible and simple for all students.

3. Brief us about the proactive Founder/CEO of the company and his contributions to the company and the industry.

Ashish Fernando is a bachelor’s in biotechnology and MBA from Bentley University.

Ashish Fernando started his career with Thomson Reuters, a software developer by profession, handling their flagship investment research solution- Thomson One. Ashish immersed himself in various executive roles in Program Management, AI, and Data Science and Engineering, moving forward in his professional pursuits. He then attended Bentley University’s flagship MBA program in 2014 with a 100% scholarship. However, identifying the right B-school for himself was not an easy feat. Thus, his struggle to find the right school due to the lack of credible information propelled him to launch iSchoolConnect after his MBA.

Ashish is committed to steering the higher education industry toward a more technology-driven and egalitarian future. He has spoken at global conferences and summits EdTechX, ASU-GSV, and ICEF. He serves on the Forbes Technical Council. He has been acknowledged as a visionary by Google for Education, Pie News.

His excellent articles for publications such as India Today, Pie News, Times of India, Financial Express, HBL, and others demonstrate his thought leadership and deep industry knowledge.

4. What is your biggest USP that diﬀerentiates the company from competitors?

Of all the companies worldwide offering overseas education assistance, iSchoolConnect is the only one with an end-to-end AI-based online platform.
Our tools provide thorough, unbiased, and ethical guidance to students.
Students have complete visibility and control of the application process.
The platform can cater to millions of aspirants with minimal reliance on human counselors.
Our student community is 400,000 strong, built to help aspirants get the right admission.

5. Please brief us about the services/solutions you provide to your customers and how do they get value out of it

iSchoolConnect is an AI technology platform that simplifies the international university application process.
It takes 200+ hours for one student to cover the entire application cycle; our product brings this down to 24 hours.
Instead of throwing people at the problem, our scalable technology can-Sift through 3100+ universities & 300K+ programs to give profile-based recommendations.
Offer instant feedback on college essays/SOPs and university and visa interview performance.
Answer any question about studying abroad.
Our B2B solutions help institutions and organizations reimagine student acquisition, engagement, and retention using technology and experienced human support.

6. How do you see the company and the industry in the future ahead?

Since its inception in 2017 and going to the market in mid-2018, iSchoolConnect’s user base has grown 3X month on month. Our website currently gets 400K visits per month. Our current conversion rate to paid customers is 10% of user registrations for the customer base. We strive to continue growing our user base at the same rate for the next few years. Our unique product offerings, great online content, and exceptional customer service have been significant growth drivers. From a geographical standpoint, we intend to grow across Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia in the next five years. Our next goal is to send across over 40K students to their dream university through the next 5 years.

To become South-East Asia’s leading student mobility solution.
To assist more than 100,000 students each year achieve their study abroad dreams.
Assist institutions across North America and the UK bringing in efficiencies and driving revenue.

7. What is the reason that organizations are using AI/ML? Would you also like to give some more details about how AI/ML at iSchoolConnect.? How has it been progressing?

According to a recent Gartner study, the 10% of companies that establish Machine Learning (ML) or Artificial Intelligence (AI) engineering best practices will generate at least three times more value from their AI and ML efforts by 2025 than the 90% of companies that don’t. Such promising numbers are propelling companies to incorporate AI and ML.

The pandemic has whizzed up the pace of technological adoption, which would have taken years to develop otherwise. Marketers use machine learning (ML)-based tools to personalize offers to their customers and track customer satisfaction.

iSchoolConnect is an AI technology platform that simplifies the international university application process.
1. It takes 200+ hours for one student to cover the entire application cycle; our product brings this down to 24 hours.
2. Instead of throwing people at the problem, our scalable technology can-
-Sift through 2800+ universities & 300K+ programs to give profile-based recommendations.
-Offer instant feedback on college essays/SOPs and university and visa interview performance.

The progress is projected in the numbers below:

400,000 universities matched to student profiles
1.1M lines of SOPs/Essays graded by AI
2M university search sessions via School Recommendation Engine
3.5M minutes spent by students on the platform
233M minutes of student videos analyzed by AI
500,000 chat responses generated by the smart chatbot

8. Which industry verticals are you currently focusing on? And what is your go-to-market strategy for the same?

Our focus is pinned on Student Admissions and Success right now.

Our go-to-marketing strategy focuses on mainly organic growth. As a result, 95% of all leads are organic. We heavily ensure customer satisfaction which leads to word-of-mouth marketing. Lastly, we establish our prowess as thought leaders in the higher education industry through extensive media coverage.

On the sales front, we focus on in-country partnerships and events. We leverage the power of the SEO-first approach and other marketing conduits such as social media marketing, events, conferences, and content playbooks. Study abroad aspirants are our focus. We have nurtured a hyper-local and institutional community running chapters in 20+ cities across South-East Asia, including India, Sri Lanka, and UAE.

9. What is your Leadership Mantra?

As an EdTech company enabling students globally to secure admission to their desired institution, we believe in engaging with students to listen to them, better understand their needs, and empower them with services that best suit their needs. We highly believe in customer value and thus stress the impact of learning in new product development. We take in the feedback and improve our products based on the input and then scale to deliver what the customer needs and values.

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