Passing on knowledge, a quizmaster’s way

Travel Quest, a national travel quiz that brings together schools from Kochi to Ahmadabad on Monday reached Hyderabad with Giri Balasubramanium better known as ‘Pickbrain’. The initiative, for which Thomas Cook has partnered with Balasubramanium’s Grey Caps India Private Ltd, will take the winners of the national quiz on an experiential trip to Switzerland.

With this as the bait, the quizmaster opened the brainstorming session to an attentive audience of kids drawn from across 65 educational institutions across the city; Balasubramanium in a chat with Young Hans traces the origin and implementation of the programme that stemmed from his passion for quizzing. On the birth of Grey Caps, Pickbrain talks of his early association with The Walt Disney Company.

“That was when I thought of turning my serious hobby of quizzing into a business proposition. The seeds were sown and took shape when a couple of friends and colleagues decided to entertain ourselves over the weekends-the bonding was our common passion for quizzing. Since we were devoid of quiz contests during our college days, we decided to conduct quizzes of our own. They had overwhelming response in school and colleges and sponsors consequently. That was when we decided to leave our jobs to take this up full time,” he points out.

Balasubramanium believes that quiz contests have changed a lot, but for the better. “We came from a generation where quiz contests were either academic or statistical. Not many were educative or a test of our knowledge. We wondered how relevant that was and what would a child gain from that piece of information. And so, we decided to come up with a quizzing contest that had useful information, including on history and science.”

His team is a close set of 40 employees, around 12 of whom put together each quiz. “We are called the Grey Caps India Private Ltd. We have three different departments that structure a quiz. The first team interacts with the client and understands their objectives and target audience. For instance, if a company wants to come up with a new logo or design, we have to understand who we are representing, who needs to get the message and what is the age segment.

That way, we are no different from a branding company. Once we get our perspective, the research wing steps in. The concept is drawn out, which defines the fabric of the event. The production team packages this effort into software and we are ready to go.” “Entrepreneurship must be encouraged”, he says albeit pointing to a worrying trend.

“I see a lot of students wanting to become entrepreneurs only for the money. That unfortunately can and should never be the objective. You need passion”. Balasubramanium believes knowledge-based businesses have huge potential in India. “Niche areas do well but there is a lot of hard work that goes into it.”

As a quizmaster, Pickbrain gets to sample students from several universities and schools. He believes many homegrown institutions are here to give the IITs and IIMs a run for their money. “We have got many institutions qualitatively as good as the IITs and IIMs. Indian students have matured a lot. Recruiters are also hunting for individual potential rather than go for the brand. Even if the latter is an advantage, it is a short lived as it is restricted to the first job.”

The direction of students’ ambition has changed its course in the country, he says. “I am glad to see parents allowing children to go beyond engineering and medicine. That is a remarkable change.” The trend down South, according to him, is a little hesitant to move ahead. “Andhra and Tamil Nadu still have a strong gravitational pull towards engineering and medicine.

Thankfully, Karnataka is witnessing a change. There is of course a lot of stress on engineering due to the growth of the IT sector. But areas like media and advertising are gradually gaining popularity in Karnataka. Talking specifically about Andhra Pradesh, Balasubramanium sees a ray of hope. “Students from Andhra are willing to take up badminton as a career. Children especially from here are showing a lot of willingness to look beyond their boundaries for studies. They want to be amongst India’s best colleges.”

Students approach Grey Caps for career suggestions and recommendations to apply to universities abroad. Is the company looking at organized consulting? No, avers Balasubramanium. “We do help a lot of foreign-bound students. But commercially we are not looking to enter the space. We honestly don’t have thousands approaching us and we are yet to have a Pan-India presence. But we do provide the service. If that can help an Indian child compete with his Chinese competitor, I am willing to help.”

By:Mythili Sankara