Ranjana Chhabra
Founder - Marvel Years, Dreamboatz Speaker | Mentor | Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lead The 15 Most Influential Women IWD 2023: TOP YOUTH LEADER
This is a special year as it marks a decade of my entrepreneurial journey, which has been no less than enlightening. Moving out of a highly rewarding corporate role back in 2013 was not easy; as a professional who loved her work and as a new mom, this was a big move (“risky” as many cautioned). But looking back to these ten years, I have no regrets at all. Each day has been an opportunity of learning. Little Marvels ELC and then Marvel Years (our web based platform for Creative Leadership) has allowed me to experiment with my ideas and even if they were turned down at any point, they gave me a sense of accomplishment. My purpose was clear from day one – to open doors to Creative learning, innovative thinking! I truly believe that the seeds of innovation need to be sown at the right age so it gets it due time to sprout into purposeful ideas. The youth today is empowered with technology; they need the right balance in their environment to leverage it and build sustainable solutions with lasting value. As a Creative Leadership mentor, I strive to foster that culture by helping the youth collaborate and contribute in the transformation of the learning economy.
Ranjana Chhabra
Founder - Marvel Years, Dreamboatz Speaker | Mentor | Innovation and Entrepreneurship Lead The 15 Most Influential Women IWD 2023: TOP YOUTH LEADER
This is a special year as it marks a decade of my entrepreneurial journey, which has been no less than enlightening. Moving out of a highly rewarding corporate role back in 2013 was not easy; as a professional who loved her work and as a new mom, this was a big move (“risky” as many cautioned).
But looking back to these ten years, I have no regrets at all. Each day has been an opportunity of learning. Little Marvels ELC and then Marvel Years (our web based platform for Creative Leadership) has allowed me to experiment with my ideas and even if they were turned down at any point, they gave me a sense of accomplishment. My purpose was clear from day one – to open doors to Creative learning, innovative thinking! I truly believe that the seeds of innovation need to be sown at the right age so it gets it due time to sprout into purposeful ideas. The youth today is empowered with technology; they need the right balance in their environment to leverage it and build sustainable solutions with lasting value. As a Creative Leadership mentor, I strive to foster that culture by helping the youth collaborate and contribute in the transformation of the learning economy.
‘Think Beyond’ is the mantra for all our programs and a piece of advice to all the young fertile minds. This could apply to thinking beyond the conventional like a strategist or thinking beyond the boundaries like a visionary. My mentorship style is focussed to create right conditions which promote creativity because it is indeed the most important leadership attribute to build value creating businesses. Our ‘Food for Thought’ leadership module is designed for young leaders and incorporates live sessions with industry experts, start-up owners and academicians, who join us in presenting the real time dynamics and guiding students for brainstorming on innovative ideas. It is truly a blessing to see the impact you can create as a Creative leadership mentor on the future of Education and this, indeed, has been one of the biggest motivators to move on.
If you had to start over would you choose this as your career or another and why?
That’s an interesting one. Well, education is not career but a passion to me. I guess I will keep coming back to it as many times as I hop off this domain. Creative Learning is Today and we cannot continue with rote techniques any more. Creative learning allows one to collaborate, to create, to dream and to dare to differentiate. The foundation of this pedagogy resonates with my personality – just the way I like to have my day. I am of the school of thought that often the inspiration and the idea to solve problems in inside the box; you just need to see through the lens of creativity. I am very fortunate that as an entrepreneur, I could choose how I want to impact the generation of doers. As a curator and mentor of creative leadership programs for youth, I feel contented seeing its impact in a collective community. This is something I like to do each day, without a frown.
How do you do justice to this title?
My learning journey is going to be really long. I don’t think I can stop because with each step, there are new ways that open up to your goal. You just need to think differently. I am humbled with this title and feel I have a long way to go to justify this but I am committed to learning and delivering with a difference. Meeting like- minded people fuels up my innovative thinking so I am definitely going to share this title with all the people (especially my young fertile minds) who make the journey truly rewarding. Creative practices have been the nucleus of my leadership style and also the pedagogy of my teachings. Creativity is my tool to inspire critical thinking and imagination in class and Creative processes are my lever to engine transformation. I could say it’s eat, drink, sleep creativity for me which is why I love to work as Creative Leadership Mentor.
Tell us about the uniqueness of your brand/talent.
Creative Leadership is the new agent to transforming the future of Education. With my learning programs, I have always believed in creating equity-centered transformational change in education through a culturally responsive pedagogy. Each of my programs are based on pillars of Youth Leadership Development that drives impact – be it grooming on conversational skills or upskilling STEM attributes into education or promoting literacy in early years. With Marvel Years, we have curated and delivered over two hundred modules of theme based creative learning activities that are delivered with the vision to instil innovation into our processes and results. Our programs are based on rigorous research and are time-tested, informed by award winning experience and research. Each module promotes experimental learning I.e. engaging, interactive and collaborative. The delivery process is adapted to the pace of learning and through goal setting and iterative reflection, each programs ensures to BOYB (Bring Out Your Best). As a mentor, my role is to make creativity infectious, so it replicates into peers and even physical/virtual boundaries. In the last decade, we have been fortunate to work with thousands of young leaders who were porous to learning and amazingly prompt to ideate and execute. Innovation is not bread, it is breath; it does not need confined brain storming sessions, it needs to go disruptive with ideas storming the brain.