{"id":991,"date":"2026-10-21T07:09:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T07:09:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/?p=991"},"modified":"2026-10-21T07:09:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T07:09:51","slug":"if-she-could-do-it-at-70-ashok-prabhus-second-run-at-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/2026\/10\/21\/if-she-could-do-it-at-70-ashok-prabhus-second-run-at-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"“If She Could Do It at 70”: Ashok Prabhu’s Second Run at Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ashok Prabhu<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About two decades ago, while attending a friend\u2019s graduation ceremony in the United States, Ashok Prabhu noticed something that stayed with him long after the event ended. Among the graduates was a woman in her seventies, standing alongside students much younger than her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sight made him wonder: if someone could pursue a degree at seventy, why should learning have an expiry date?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, after a four-decade career in the IT industry in India and the US, that idea found a new expression in Ashok\u2019s own life. Now retired, he continues to study management and leadership, taking courses through NPTEL and SWAYAM and steadily adding new subjects to a learning journey that began almost by accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An electronics engineer with an MBA, he managed large teams during his career. About five years ago, he was asked to encourage engineers across multiple teams to pursue a certification in a particular technology. The upper echelons suggested that the managers should complete the certification first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ashok was skeptical. As a people manager, he wondered what a technical certification would add to his work. He decided to try it anyway. The certification, offered by Google, turned out to be more interesting than he had expected. The \u201cobligation\u201d became a reminder of how much he enjoyed learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explored a plethora of courses, but eventually found himself returning to his old interests – management and leadership. While looking for courses in these areas, he discovered NPTEL, and the range of courses offered by faculty from IITs and IIMs opened up an entirely different possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first course he took, he recalls, was \u2018Advanced Corporate Strategy\u2019. He enrolled without any particular outcome in mind. \u201cMy goal was purely to learn out of passion and make up for lost time in my career where I had stopped learning for a period,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He started slowly, initially taking one course a semester. Over the last few years, that pace has picked up. He now completes around two certifications every six months and has finished 12 NPTEL courses. He has also earned recognition as an NPTEL Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The courses span subjects connected to both his professional experience and personal interests. \u2018Mergers & Acquisitions\u2019, \u2018Corporate Restructuring\u2019, and \u2018Corporate Social Responsibility\u2019 complemented his role as an independent director, while courses in Ethics and Human Resource Management allowed him to explore areas he was curious about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two courses remain particularly memorable. \u2018Leadership for India\u2019, taught by Prof. C. Bhaktavatsala Rao of IIT Madras, stood out for its depth and detail. \u2018Design Thinking\u2019, by Prof. Bala Ramadurai of IIT Madras, offered something different, combining serious learning with an unusually engaging format that included virtual field visits. But, It hasn’t been effortless. He tends to pick the four-week courses expecting a lighter load, only to find that the modules are long and the weeks are still demanding. He also hasn\u2019t settled on whether to watch the lectures or read the transcripts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the course catalogue, he’d like more management and leadership courses, particularly in Corporate Governance , and fresh material added to the syllabus each year to keep the content current. Irrespective of that, his verdict remains clear: “It is a fantastic platform.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He recommends it to colleagues often, and his pitch is short: the content comes from top institutions, it’s free to learn, and the certification fee is low. If more people knew about it, he thinks, more of them would end up learning for life. “NPTEL is a wonderful platform that can truly hook anyone into lifelong learning once they discover it.” Ashok is a fair example. The hook went in at that graduation ceremony, and he hasn’t stopped enrolling since. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has been following that lesson ever since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~written by Sania\u00a0K J<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashok Prabhu About two decades ago, while attending a friend\u2019s graduation ceremony in the United States, Ashok Prabhu noticed something that stayed with him long after the event ended. Among the graduates was a woman in her seventies, standing alongside students much younger than her. The sight made him wonder: if someone could pursue a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nptel-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":999,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.nptel.ac.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}