Suma E P: Welcome to K12 Tech Insights Podcast. My name is Suma I lead Niswey I'm the host of the show and along with me, my co-host is Adarsh. Adarsh leads the India and SAARC.
Addy: Hello.
Suma E P: areas for HubSpot, world's leading AI-powered CRM. And today we are very excited because we have a wonderful friend of ours who's being the guest for today. We are extending a warm welcome to our friend, Sunitha Anupkumar. She's from IIT Madras.
Addy: Sunitha, thank you for joining. This has been probably one of the most awaited podcast recording between me and Suma. From the day we started, wanted ⁓ you to be part of this because unlike most of us in the industry, you bring in a lot of ⁓ societal impact with the job that you're doing. ⁓ You are one of our leaders when it comes to tech adoption ⁓ in eduTech. You are somebody who's
Sunitha Anupkumar: Thank you suma
Addy: spoken very well in the industry circle. it's an honor and a privilege to get your time. And we want to know more about what you do. ⁓ We want to know more about what IIT Madras does in terms of alumni management. Very keen to hear, Sunitha.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Thank you Adi, thank you Suma thanks for having me here. It's an absolute pleasure always speaking to both of you. Yes, thanks for having me.
Suma E P: Before we jump into the questions, let me just have a quick background of Sunitha. She's a strategic marketing leader with over 15 years of experience across corporate, nonprofit, and academic sectors. She serves as the head of marketing at the Office of Alumni and Corporate Relations at IIT Madras. She drives alumni and CSR engagement, fundraising, and brand visibility for India's most prestigious institution.
Sunitha is passionate about storytelling, data led strategy, and building communities that create lasting impact. With a deep belief in marketing for a beautiful world, she brings together data driven strategy and human centered storytelling to create campaigns that connect people across geographies and purpose. So let's get started. Sunitha. So tell us about your role and ⁓ what is IIT Madras doing with respect to alumni management.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Thank you Suma Thank you for that wonderful introduction. So I come from the Office of Alumni and Corporate Relations at IIT Madras. had the marketing team there. ⁓ so we are into fundraising for IIT Madras. so we are kind of the fundraising arm of IIT Madras. And we bring in funds through alumni and corporate outreach. Alumni outreach because we have a 65,000 strong alumni network spread across the globe. We would love to leverage their, this one, to bring back funds into the campus. And through the corporate outreach, of course, through the CSR funding, we try to bring in funds for the IT matter. so this is basically the gist of the way our office works. And I am an alumnus myself, so I've been all over the place. By they back when I graduated, I probably never even thought I'd come back to where I was right now but then life has its own ways of playing tricks with you and so I'm here and I couldn't be any less happier.
Suma E P: Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: so a bit about my role, ⁓ I am part of the marketing team here and we take care of the communications and events happening, events and digital marketing and everything, ⁓ a regular marketing team, but to support the fundraising activities of the office. so we are about three to four people strong and we are working to support our fundraising teams to improve the reach of our office, to make sure the messaging reaches the audience well. probably one challenge that we have, it's a continuous process for us, not just for my team, it's also for my offices. Why would I, in Madras, even need funding? a bit about that. so ⁓ if you would say IITs were created, the idea of an IIT came
Suma E P: Hmm. Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: came in way back soon after our independence because we wanted to build indigenous capabilities and indigenous skills within the country for building the country. so we wanted to be independent in the truest sense of the word. so that's probably the very why behind what we do. so we are working for the nation to build the nation. And to do this, we need the collective support of the government of our alumni network, of the industry, and all of us have to come together to work with the common vision of nation building. Vixit Bharat 2047 doesn't just let that happen. so it has to have everybody working, doing their bit, and we are doing our bit for that.
Suma E P: Excellent. We tend to forget how much work has gone into building the nation and bringing it to where it is right now. It is very important for us to actually remember these things and go back to our roots and be proud about what you guys are doing right now. ⁓ So then, how do you go about? So what does alumni management really entail? Is it only about fundraising? Do you do other things? What do you do?
Sunitha Anupkumar: Okay, So when it comes to alumni giving, so we like to call it, there are the three T's of giving. One is, you know, the time, talent, and treasure. so this is something that we rally to, we try to bring in and rally with the alumni. The three T's, time, alumni just come back to the place where it all begins. So that's all we tell them. You come back and everything else will follow. So come back, be there, be with the students, interact with the students. Look at the classrooms where you once sat. That itself brings a lot of, not just nostalgia, but it kind of gives that gratifying feeling. It makes you look back at the journey that you've been through. that is one way of making sure alumni are connected with the institute. And then they spend some time talking to the students, being part of some initiatives. It could be counseling. It could be mentoring. It could be probably doing a couple of doing a couple of courses for the students and things like that. And the next one is talent, wherein we try to leverage the skills and the positions of where our alumni are currently placed. Our alumni are global leaders, nothing short of global leaders. them coming back to the institute, talking to the students, sharing their talents, sharing their experience,
Suma E P: Great.
Sunitha Anupkumar: what they've learned and and passing it back to the current students. That's a big thing for us. so we have something called, for example, we have something called the Leadership Lecture Series where we bring in global leaders or top corporates amongst our alumni to come back to the institute, talk about some relevant topics to the current. So it could be anything from AI to sustainability to green living and everything in between.
Suma E P: Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Suma
Suma E P: Wow.
Sunitha Anupkumar: there is no restriction on the topic. So they come, they pick up a topic that they're passionate about that the students will love. So they love talking to the students and the students love interacting with the alumni. So it's a big win-win and it's a, all of us, it's a big win-win and all of us love that. So this is one way in which the alumni can come back and contribute. They can be part of all the, good number of initiatives that's happening. And when, where you cannot, where you time, doesn't allow you to give your time or your talent, you can also come in and support the institute monetarily. There are four ways in which the alumni support us. One is through supporting research. By research, mean research labs. They can fund labs. They can fund specific research centers. Or they can fund, say, we have a center for innovation, which is like the hub of innovation happening at IT Madras. ⁓ And it's completely run by students. So this is supported or this was established through alumni funding. So this is all the major, know, Aether Energy came from the C-5. One of the best stories. yeah, So you can fund research happening at IDM at Ross. You can fund innovation happening at IDM at Ross. Or we have something called shared professorships where the alumni come forward
Suma E P: Wow. Yeah. in.
Addy: Unbelievable.
Sunitha Anupkumar: and establish a chair in the name of a professor that they respected and that was part of, somebody was part of their journey at IT Madras. So in their name, they establish a chair and through that research for that particular topic, a very specific topic, grows. So that's probably one of the ways in which, that's one of the ways in which the alumni support us in research. Next is infrastructure where if we want to be world class, we need world class infrastructure to support us. So our alumni have played a big role in coming forward to support the various infrastructure development activities at the Institute. And the third and the most important, most gratifying part is the scholarships or the student support. They support the students through scholarships and student living expenses. So thus we established scholarships and endowments support students in various activities. For example, when a student gets into an IIT and if they fall in a certain income bracket, a good part of the tuition fees is already supported by the government. then there is still a whole gamut of expenses that the student has to face. As it is to just enter the gates of an IIT and for that to be stopped because of a financial burden is a big role.
Suma E P: getting. Right.
Sunitha Anupkumar: So now through these funds, scholarship, merit coming scholarship or the student living expenses scholarship, we try to remove that burden of the students so that they're able to focus on their academics, they're able to focus on their dreams. And it's just happy to see that I'm also very happy to say that a good number of ⁓ donors who have come forward for this scholarship to fund scholarships, they're also beneficiaries themselves. So it's the way of them giving back to the
Addy: awesome
Sunitha Anupkumar: it forward, giving back to the institute. And the last part of it, we call it internationalization where we fund students or young faculty who can go for... ⁓ conferences and workshops happening all over the place. So that's one other place where the alumni funding can support us. So these are the ways in which alumni funding helps us grow and has made IIT Madras where it is today.
Addy: Totally and such a beautiful narrative there. Sunitha in the first few minutes of this podcast, you have made me and I'm thinking Suma also and ⁓ a large portion of our audience feel guilty for not doing what we should be doing. I'm just thinking as you say, I've always said I'm busy. I've always said there a lot of things happening. So no time for my, probably my peers and Friends who have approached I feel now totally guilty of not being able to do and contribute back We always think alumnus is about fundraising and money only but you just given us a different perspective altogether and I really hope whoever is listening to this and whoever is seeing this Wherever in whatever channel really gets inspired to do their bit to the Institute that made them the professors that made them That said, you also mentioned these are global leaders and which is and IIT Madras is probably at the number one position. I remember you telling us your Dean's motto is to stay number one at all the time and really break the benchmarks ⁓ with team members like you. Obviously, everybody is in good hands. But to manage these global leaders who are so busy, so spread over, How does your team, led by you, leverage on tech to run these programs, to manage the activities, to make sure everything goes on smooth? ⁓ I'm very curious about how have you leveraged technology for this situation?
Sunitha Anupkumar: That's a great question, Adi. So the very first need for a marketing team is to be able to reach the audience. Just reach. And for an institute as big as ours and as old as ours, the data is sometimes outdated. The data is sometimes not accurate. And the data that we have in our CRM right now might not be the recent one.
Suma E P: Hmm.
Sunitha Anupkumar: of say corporate if you say you know mostly whenever in the corporate companies CRM the email ID is always the official email ID for us it's not necessarily that. an alumni's journey will be spread across at least four to five companies. So that's not what we want. It's their personal email ID. Sometimes personal email IDs don't get checked in our busy days. there are ways and the challenge for us is right to just reach them. So that was the first challenge that we had to face. And that's where a good CRM and a good data mining tool could help us. So we are now work, we have HubSpot as our
Suma E P: Get it.
Sunitha Anupkumar: CRM and on the marketing front we have the HubSpot CRM and on the ⁓ database side we have Salesforce using to be as a robust place where people. And a good part of our work is also ⁓ being built, the processes are built on these two platforms. So we have the robust support of two great platforms. And especially for marketing, would say I have, you know, my work has, my team's work has become So much easier from when we have started using these tools. And it's, we are a lot more independent right now. to very efficient in the way we automate our processes. being very agile in the way we are able to work. We are very data-driven in the way we are running our campaigns. If a campaign is not running well, now we know exactly why it's not working well. If a campaign is not reaching the right people, we know why it is not reaching the right people. Right now, we are even able to tell us, we are even able to go do the data.
Suma E P: Nice.
Sunitha Anupkumar: data crunching to say, okay, you this percentage of our database is not engaged at all. Now we are now in the process of making sure that bunch comes back into the pipeline. So that way tech has enabled us to be able to be able to reach the right people and reach them in the way they want, reach them across the channels that they are available. So Right now a few months ago, we started WhatsApp as a primary means of communication.
Suma E P: Hmm.
Sunitha Anupkumar: And we're slowly but steadily starting to see the benefits of that coming into the ⁓ processes. So this way we are able to leverage technology and we of course, know, as in every other place, we are now having AI tools also to support us. have Perplexity, have, know, ChatGPT. Now it has become like, you know, the first thing everybody opens when they open the app. But yeah, So that support is always there. And of course, HubSpot is AI enabled. that set of work is also getting much much more easier now.
Suma E P: So ⁓ it sounds like you have a really great tech stack that is working for you. You have WhatsApp, which is integrated into HubSpot, So all data also flows into your CRM. ⁓ What else? you, IIT Madras is a path breaker in fundraising and alumni management, right? It is among the, it is probably the topmost in India, definitely. World over, alumni engagement is dipping. Alumni, you know, fundraising is going down and. here but here you are, you are doing the exact opposite. What is it that you are setting IIT Madras apart from the rest of the other, you know, everybody has an Alim management system or an intention definitely.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Yeah. So alumni outreach as a concept has been catching up. I would say it is not. It is not where it was earlier. I'm right now hearing a lot of place, a lot of institutes, lot of universities talking about alumni outreach and taking alumni outreach seriously. Honestly, until I came, I took up this role even I wasn't very engaged. Honestly, even I wasn't very engaged. And now I know why it was wrong. Now I know that why it is important to stay connected to the place that made you what you are. So alumni outreach is catching up. But what probably sets our office apart is the way in which we have institutionalized various processes. have, we are about 50 to 60 people strong. And we have specific processes, specific teams taking care of specific aspects of outreach. So we have a fundraising team that takes care of alumni outreach, talking to the alumni, bringing them back, engaging with them and all that. We have a core team working specifically for that. And then we have a team that ensures the funds that comes in is deployed well. So there is a deployment team that ensures that the funds that come in are channeled to the right teams within the institute, be it for research, be it for scholarship, a fair partnership, or even an infrastructure. So we work with various units within the institute to ensure the money is deployed well. And then we have the most important part of the journey, which is called the Donors to Worship Team, where the team works towards donor relationship management. They give regular updates about the project to the donors. They give regular reports to the donors about the project. And whenever the donor visits India, whenever they visit Chennai, they ensure they bring them to the campus. They take them around the campus and show them around, show them all the activities happening. So if somebody has supported, say, supported students, they bring the benefit, they have like a meeting with the beneficiaries of this college. So the donor directly gets to interact with the beneficiaries and they speak with them. So the donor's stewardship team does a big role, plays a big role in making sure the donors are happy through and through. So that's one part. And then we have the support teams like mine, where the marketing team supports the fundraising journey at every stage, from the outreach to the probably even sometimes in the deployment stage where they need some communication support, to the reports or something. So we support the teams in the whole journey of the fundraising team. And then we have our admin team, our IT team, our IT team and the admin teams also support on this. And we are led by our dean and our senior. So we work like a well-oiled machine here. And much beyond this institutionalized processes and well-defined teams, what also drives us is the passion with which we work. A good number of us are alumni ourselves. So we have that connect that will not come anywhere else. So we have that connect with the place that we work for. And the passion within a good part of our team has been there from when this office was established. So they built this whole thing ground up. I'm just two years old here. But then there are people who have there right from, who are part of the founding team. So they have seen this office go to where we are, achieve what we have done. So that's probably what brings us together and keeps us together and makes us keep working. towards what we are looking towards that bigger goal that we want.
Addy: Sunitha, So in this role you get to interact with a lot of people across industries especially part of the LMAs, but also the core that you belong to with this institute is your Edutek and K12. Any knowledge that you can share with our audience on the trends you are seeing in the K-12 sector as such. Anything that you have observed, AI obviously has changed the way we think. We live literally in every aspect of our lives. I'm very keen to hear what are you seeing in the endo tech side.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Okay, ⁓ prior to this, was still saying the education. ⁓ domain for what I don't want to call it an industry. want to call it a domain. So I was in the education domain. So that was when my experience with K12 had started. ⁓ good part of it, I would say a good part of it has been changed. Thanks to COVID, EdTech is a big buzzword now. It's a big thing now. So prior to that, technology as part of an education, educational processes has not played
Addy: Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: a really great role but now thanks to not say thanks to but then because of COVID we are using we ⁓ are seeing the trend of using technology for everyday educational processes rising so anything so I was just speaking to a friend who is into curriculum design for k-12 yesterday so prior to this podcast so she was telling me lesson plans are getting better so lesson plans the teachers are Earlier when teachers used to spend hours and hours to build a lesson plan, now they're able to build it faster. So lesson plans are getting faster. The reports that ⁓ the teachers give to the parents, they are getting better. They're able to customize it to a child, to a particular child and all that. So ⁓ in a big way and the classrooms and the AVs and everything, the children, Google Classroom is a ⁓ common term now.
Suma E P: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Prior to 2020 we never, not many of us used Google Classroom. So now it's a common term. Homeworks are getting deployed there. Homeworks are getting assessed there. like I said, lesson plans are getting better. Are they getting translated in the classroom? That's a different question, but at least a good part of the grant work that the teachers are doing, that has reduced. So that's one key trend that I would like to present here.
Suma E P: Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Children are also being, of course, children ⁓ are attracted to technology very easily. So they are able to use technology to give their homework or present their things. it's a presentation in the classroom is now very common. It was not like that even when my son was in school. students do presentations. Children are like very proficient with Canva. So little things like that are bringing in a lot of change in the industry, the tech industry as such.
Suma E P: Hmm. Hehehe.
Sunitha Anupkumar: .
Suma E P: Anything about parents itself, the parents expectations changing? How are the parents behaving these days? As a marketer, know, that's the most important thing.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Yeah, yeah. So as a parent, yes. Okay. Okay, yes. As a parent, think the expectations are now also on
Addy: Now I am curious which hat Sunitha will wear, the parent hat or the kid kiddude hat.
Suma E P: Hahaha!
Sunitha Anupkumar: getting personalized and customized, understanding of how their child is doing in their school. So that, think, is an expectation that every parent is now able to have. Not just, know, everybody, even back during our days, we wanted to have personalized. You know, we wanted to have, I just wanted to know how my son is doing in class. But then now they're able to demand this of the school because, you know, they are tech enabled. and they have all the technology needed to support, for the teacher or for the school to be able to give that back to the parent. And because of this technology connect, parents are able to understand how their child is able, work performing, or how their child is doing in class, and how they can support the child, or how they can support the teacher in their child the right support in the classroom. So it all works, it all has to work collectively. The parents, the teachers, the school, All of them together have to work for the benefit of the site. And tech is a big enabler in this whole process.
Suma E P: Yeah. I remember having a conversation with you in which you were saying that, ⁓ you know, it's not just the schools, the colleges and the universities in India. the level of the way marketing is done is very subpar, right? Like it's not, there is no nurturing. There is no communication about the core strength or the core USPs. And it is just a spray and pray approach. Even today, we are sitting in 2026 and it's still spray and pray. So do you want to comment on that?
Sunitha Anupkumar: this. Good. Yes, yes, because Marketing plays a very important role. I think till now the schools never relied on marketing themselves. Schools didn't have to probably, I feel there is an important need for that to happen. So for the need to change, for the benefit of the child. So I've been there in the marketing platform for the K-12 space, not with a particular school, but with an office that company that worked for different schools. So we got challenges such as we don't know what the child is doing. We don't know what the school is doing with respect to what. So we don't know how the lessons are impacting my child. We don't know how the teacher is being, how well the teacher is equipped to teach my child. So these are some very valid questions that parents have. And that answer is not coming forth. But when you tell them this
Suma E P: Hmm. Hmm.
Sunitha Anupkumar: So a very simple example is to probably just showcase your child's work to the parents. Showcase the child's work as you don't have to have, you know, fancy banners. A child's simple answer, a child's unique creative answer to a question is enough to show how well your teacher has communicated that lesson to the child and how well the child has imbibed that lesson well enough for that to be coming out as a beautiful answer on the homework model. What better marketing tool do you need?
Suma E P: Hmm. Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Yeah, So that's the kind of nurturing that we would love for the teachers to bring in. So it's not enough if we have, say, an annual day where the children are presenting something. It's not enough if you have a parent-teacher day. But make the best of the parent-teacher day. Show them what the child has done. So that, instead of going through just the marks and being done with it, but show them what the child has done. Show them how the child has been in the classroom. So in all this, again, I come back to the point where I say,
Suma E P: Hmm.
Sunitha Anupkumar: the teachers are able to capture these answers earlier when they had to go through reams and reams of paper now they're able to capture these and probably even share in the whatsapp so something as simple as that is very gratifying So something as simple as you know capturing a very unique answer and posting it makes the parent happy makes a child proud and your school is you know your school is now happy with the customer engagement
Suma E P: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Addy: Could there be a radical change to the way we learn in the future ⁓ with AI coming in and everything getting automated, all the trends? Because for example, we at corporate, we have AI agents and assistants joining us in our meeting rooms who analyze. We are heard all the time. We are given coaching by the system. We are Pinpointed at our inefficiencies and efficiencies, are appreciated for what we do good. Even the tone of the conversation can be ⁓ measured and analyzed. With that coming to education, this could be something that we have never seen before or thought of it, isn't it? What the automation can do for future? What do you think of it?
Sunitha Anupkumar: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm... a little excited, but also a little anxious, right? With the advent of AI, I keep thinking about where is the education market or where is the education going to go next? So there is a lot of emphasis on being tech enabled and everything, AI enabled and everything, using the usage of AI. But where, how does it enable or disable us from doing something?
Addy: Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: So when we talk about AI in a classroom, So if they're going to be using AI for everything, where is the child's unique thinking coming into the picture? So is that going to be curved because we are using AI? If a child is using AI to submit the homework, a teacher is using AI to reframe the questions. So is that going to curve the basic human intelligence that we have? that's a big question. And this is where, but I think all is not lost. This is probably just the fear of adoption or fear of, you know, ⁓ technology that's coming in. We will have to adapt ourselves. We will have to adapt. As humans, we have to adapt ourselves to make sure we come out of this and our intelligence shines bright in the midst of all this. And I think the radical change is still right around the corner. and it is yet to come and we will see a radical change because through all this, the individual is probably lost and the individual has to come forth and that will come forth through a radical change. So it needs to be there, the tools have to be enabled to support this change, to support this ⁓ revolution that's coming up in every industry there is and that's probably the right way to go and that's also probably how things will evolve and come forward.
Suma E P: Very cool. Yeah, it's a very challenging time, but at the same time, it's a time full of opportunities because now you're able to see where the child is going to lag or where the child is disengaged. And because the teachers, you know, the sloth work is taken out, you know, the reporting and the child, you know, all of those paper marking and everything is kind of reduced, she or he can focus on the child a lot more. So I think that opportunity has become so much bigger now, and I think that is where...
Sunitha Anupkumar: years. we need. Very good. Yes.
Suma E P: we need to keep our focus and the rest should be you know, okay, rest can be AI enabled and automated and all of that but the teacher-student relationship still needs to be in focus. Yeah.
Sunitha Anupkumar: that human element needs to still be there for the child.
Suma E P: for the child, yes. Sunitha, when you started your career, I think you started as an engineer, right? Like ⁓ in software development, no?
Sunitha Anupkumar: I'm not an engineer, yes, software development, yes.
Suma E P: Yes, started, So Sunitha, you started your career in software development and today here you are managing alumni and know, So it's probably a long journey of different things that you have tried. in your, this journey you would have seen a lot of tech adoption, tech changes and you know, how have you ⁓ equipped yourself with this tech that has come in and how has that tech enabled you through these, different changes and different roles that you have played.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Thanks, Suma. That's a great question. I started my career as a software developer. a good, almost a decade of being in software and took a U-turn to start as a marketer. So when I started, So in all, in the truest sense of the word, I was a treasurer as a marketer at that point in time, even though I was, I had a good bit of corporate experience by then. So when I started my journey, as a marketer. One thing that I started as a content writer and from there I moved on to become a marketer and everything. So when I moved into marketing and when I was looking at you those were the times when you know we had inquiries coming leads coming in through the website inquiry forms and we had to talk to them we had to engage with them and all that but we were also analyzing the website visits and everything and I wasn't sure the website visitors converted.
to form a film. So that's where my primary challenge started and I was like, where is this gap? How is this gap coming? And I was as new as I was to marketing, I was also not too aware of the tools that could help me. And a good bit of digging, a bit of reading helped me come to a few articles and from there is when I started exploring HubSpot and HubSpot used to help me with their blogs.
Sunitha Anupkumar: We were a small company. HubSpot used to help me with their blogs as a marketer. So I was, that was my learning space. So any challenge that I have, I used to Google and find out what I can do and do my bit. And I was still not sure if we can have a tool like that. So then HubSpot, the learning that I got through that was part, it was a constant part of my conversations with my team, with my managers and in our office meetings and our leadership meetings.
Suma E P: getting.
Sunitha Anupkumar: It was always a constant part of my conversations. And one fine day, my manager said, enough is enough. Stop talking. Bring in the tools. So that's what happened. So that's my first initiation into, say, a CRM tool for my marketing purposes. And that was kind of life changing at my work, because a lot of what I thought I could not do, a lot of information that I thought was hidden, was not there for me, was now up front at my face and I could use that data. I could use that information to segment, to have a segmented customized approach to marketing. So that was an eye opener way back then. was much earlier, earlier. Now we are at a very, very different phase of marketing where everything is AI enabled and we have things that are fingertips. And back then it was really an eye opener for me. And from there on we have moved in leaps and bounds and come to where we are. Now we have AI agents helping us with that marketing. So that's the kind of the journey that is, you know, that's kind of the role that tech has played in every stage of marketing. And from there we came to when I moved on to my another role is when I was exploring other channels to market where email as a channel was not working quite well for us given the audience, given our audience was school leaders from tier two or tier three
Suma E P: Yes.
Sunitha Anupkumar: So emails was not working as well. I mean, as much as we wanted it to. And that's how we explore the other channels like WhatsApp, WhatsApp. then that got integrated into our marketing processes, marketing strategy. And so Omnichannel marketing was now, which is now a big thing, started there because there was a need. There was a need for a channel to be identified. There was a tech that supported us with that need and we are where we are right now. Thanks for
Suma E P: Yeah.
Excellent. Very nice summary of how things have changed over the last, I think, 12 years. Yeah. Awesome. Adarsh, you had any questions? Any more questions?
Sunitha Anupkumar: Easily, more than 12 years in fact.
ADDY: Now I am thrilled to now get to know Sunitha's journey better. I am more thrilled to understand a premier institute like IIT Madras being the top in the country, ⁓ leading a way forward for all other institutes ⁓ in India to follow in this particular project. And then ⁓ there is so much of inspiration ⁓ in this podcast that has come out. which will motivate people like me to think about the places that we have come up, the places that has given us so much in life and the people, our teachers and professors who have given us and shaped our lives. It is a lesson to people like me who always thought of ⁓ giving back is always on monetary terms. It's a new perspective that you've given us, Sunitha. Hopefully, just like me, many of us will understand.
There is more than money that you can give back to have an impact to the Institute, the ecosystem and the society that we belong to. And I want to wish IIT Madras under your Dean and your team to do well and become number one globally. And that's my ⁓ secret wishes for you. Apart from that, I was also very thrilled to see how you are engaging with future entrepreneurs.
Suma E P: Thank
ADDY: coming out of your innovation hubs and that's needed for our country. We need more athors of the world to come out from your center of excellence and innovation hubs. more optimism in this podcast than most of the others. So very thrilled with this conversation. I'm also thankful for the sponsorship and the message you have for HubSpot. We love our customers who… derive value out of the tools that you use. And it is heartening to see how you grow because that's our motto. We want to help everybody to grow better. And you are leading the pack in that. So it's an amazing validation for the efforts myself and my team puts in day and night. Thank you so much Sunitha. Wonderful conversation. I learned a lot, changed perspectives, and wishing you all the best in the future projects.
Sunitha Anupkumar: Thank you so much Adi and Suma, it has been lovely talking about this journey to both of you and thanks for having me. It is a wonderful experience. As always, a pleasure to speak with you.
Suma E P: It's been our pleasure too and thank you so much for being here.
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