upGrad could become India’s first GDPR compliant edtech, as it draws big plans of international expansion
Delhi: Since May 25th, 2018, when the E.U. enforced the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, no known home-grown e-learning platform has been operating in member states of E.U. The dry spell might just be broken by upGrad, India’s largest higher edtech.
upGrad is building its subsidiaries across EMEA & APAC and has recently onboarded international CEOs to build & run its operations in these markets. The big international expansion plans of upGrad in the coming 6 quarters is hinging on the brand’s tech talent which is currently 150 people strong and tech capabilities to support GDPR compliance across all systems, opening the doors to the untapped European Markets.
“Privacy and security are critical for today’s online businesses and with India also heading towards a new privacy policy framework, GDPR compliance is an important investment that not only drives international expansion but also readiness for the future,” said Puneet Tanwar, Head of Technology, upGrad.
The core product for the learning experience will be unified across markets. The edtech major is building internationalised features such as country-specific content, multi-currency and multi-language support, etc. Also, on the roadmap for next year are features such as multi-region infrastructure deployments that provide learners the best performance due to proximity and resilience to handle any regional outages.
“The project is still in its infancy as one of the key things to materialise this ambition would be to get the right set of talent in the areas of SecOps and high scale multi-region architecture,” Tanwar added.
“Factory model education is not restricted to India but is a universal phenomenon. So, is the need for personalised Lifelong Learning that we’re building. Given GDPR is the future of data protection policies, building capabilities to ensure compliance to one, will enable us to quickly adapt to other region compliances as well, as we drive adoption of the platform across the globe,” said Rohit Dhar, Head of Products, upGrad.
As per the United Nations, 132 of 194 countries have implemented Data Protection and Privacy Laws globally owing to the increasing importance of data and privacy, as COVID accelerates social & economic activities online. Only a matter of time, before the SAARC nations, follow suit.