The smartphone OEMs have been forging partnerships primarily in financing, shopping and entertainment segments. Little has anyone collaborated in the areas of education, career progression, etc. We have seen in the past associations where smartphone OEMs brought fintech services, OTT entertainment, gaming, shopping and other such integrations for its users. There is no denying that these collaborations and integrations did bring value for the smartphone users. However, most of them have a business flavour.
Smartphone is a very powerful tool in the hands of millions of users. With the digital landscape around, it can offer a lot of value to the users and help them solve real world problems. For instance, in a media interaction, few years back, I had suggested that career progression could be a good application area for a smartphone OEM helping its users not just in acquiring a good job, but also mentoring the journey onwards. A smartphone knows a lot about its user. With some more permissions to help AI engines to capture meaningful data, it can go bit further. Leveraging AI, a smartphone can easily create cohorts of its users blending the interests, educational background and skill sets, and then keep on recommending the right course of career progression. Building a solution for this could help millions of aspirational youths who are just embarking on their professional journey.
Lava’s collaboration with Doubtnut is an interesting blend which is going to directly impact millions of students helping them to solve a real-life problem which is more relatable to students looking for rich content and counselling. This could help millions of smartphone users to achieve excellence in education. Integrating such application areas is how smartphones can increase their productivity quotient for the users. Else, beyond a point we see smartphones adding to distractions and overloading users with irrelevant or less important applications. As India is witnessing a paradigm shift in the job market where we are moving from earning degrees to gaining competencies to exhibiting skill sets, smartphones can play an important role in shaping up the career and continuously counsel youth towards a promising career opportunity with a mix of technology and advisors in the background.
Lava has made an attempt to add to the productivity quotient of smartphones and there is a lot that the smartphone OEMs can together do in such areas. For instance, Lava and Doubtnut collaboration could further help users in career counselling, jobs and career progression. With 5G already live in the country, it’s time to explore going beyond the fun, social and entertainment quotient of a smartphone and help users with more productivity-oriented applications. That’s how users will find more value in a smartphone and pay more over a longer period for the advisor / counsellor in their pockets who can mentor on several areas. The era for smartphone to be our advisor / mentor has arrived.
Lava Doubtnut collaboration
Lava’s upcoming smartphone will come pre-loaded with Doubtnut app, providing free subscription to quality education for students. In addition, students will also get access to Doubtnut’s instant doubt solving platform. The collaboration will offer Doubtnut’s course material for classes 9th to 12th (worth up to Rs 12,000) for one year.
