Last week at MongoDB.local Bangalore, I sat down with Basavadarshan G N, or Darshan as most people know him, Senior Academia Partnership Manager for APAC at MongoDB, on The Ravit Show. Darshan sits at the intersection of two things I care a lot about. Developer education, and India's push to actually build for the AI era instead of just consuming it. His work with MongoDB for Academia is quietly one of the more important programs happening in Indian tech right now.
Here is what we got into.
- We started with the basics. What MongoDB for Academia actually is, who it reaches, and how it fits into the broader Indian developer landscape. If you have not looked at this program closely yet, this part is worth the time
- We talked about the 650,000 students the program has already reached since 2023. That is not a small number. Darshan walked me through what has been driving the momentum, and why this moment felt right to double down and go bigger
- We went into the big announcement from the event. MongoDB committing to upskill two million Indian builders by 2030. New curriculum in Kannada, Hindi, and Tamil. 1,500 plus institutions. 5,000 educators. I asked him what the actual roadmap to that number looks like, because two million is a promise that has to be earned, and he was clear about how they plan to get there
- We spent real time on the language piece. Building curriculum in Kannada, Hindi, and Tamil is not a marketing move. It is an access move. Darshan's view on how big a barrier language has been for students outside the metros, and what opens up for them when that barrier drops, was one of the more grounded moments of the conversation.
- We talked about foundational data skills too. The buzz right now is that AI is going to make technical skills more accessible. That may be true. But data skills are still the layer everything sits on, and Darshan made the case for why they are more important now, not less.
- We got into the AICTE Virtual Internship Programme. What a student actually experiences, what they walk away with, and what they should be able to build after finishing it.
A few things stayed with me.
MongoDB is behind half of India's top 100 companies and 50 plus unicorns. Students trained on this stack are being prepared for the exact environment they will walk into on day one.
The India AI story cannot be told without the education story. You cannot build two million careers on English-only curriculum. This is the real inclusion play.
Two million by 2030 is not a slide. It is a plan with partners, institutions, languages, and a delivery model behind it. Worth watching.
Full interview live now!!!!
#data #ai #mongodb #mongodblocal #theravitshow
