Every year on July 10, MBD Group, one of India’s largest education brands as also one among the reputed brands in pragmatic hospitality and real estate in the country, remembers and celebrates its founder late Ashok Kumar Malhotra. This year was his 76th birth anniversary.
A visionary educationist, hospitality genius, change-maker, empowerment champion, earnest philanthropist, fervent advocate of girl child education and a legend having a heart of gold, Shri Malhotra’s name evokes trust, confidence, humility and service in the MBD brand.
Every year this much-anticipated day is celebrated by the group employees as a day of reaffirmation and rededication to the vision and mission of their bounder. However, like last year, the event this year went virtual owing to the pandemic but didn’t lack the spirit of celebration and participation. The extraordinary courage and resilience of MBDians (that’s how MBD employees refer to themselves) was honoured by conferring on them the MBD Hero award, which celebrates the sparks of greatness in employees who continued to do the right thing in spite of the challenges. Appreciating MBDians for their courage and determination Mrs Satish Bala Malhotra, Chairperson MBD Group, said, “We have emerged stronger from a challenge unique and unparalleled in recent memory. We learnt from mistakes – ours and others – and observed, analysed, innovated, improvised, initiated course-correction, took ownership and risks and did everything humanly possible and more to keep operations moving. And we kept moving. Because that’s what life is.”
Since last year (2020) when students have been staying stay home in the wake of pandemic and teaching/learning changed to online, MBD Group launched the AASOKA App which makes available to students high quality study material in the form of e-books, audio lessons, video lessons and online assessments and assignments that help them focus on studies in a constructive and interesting manner. Also, ALTS (Aasoka Learning and Teaching Solutions) was developed for schools; it is a cloud-based platform catering to all academic, administrative, learning and teaching needs of schools with curriculums of CBSE, ICSE/ISC and various State Boards. “In the past year, we have been able to rise to the challenge of providing new solutions for students and teachers in the form of ALTS & AASOKA. With these two products we foresee a bright future of MBD Family in the EdTech space,” said Monica Malhotra Kandhari, Managing Director MBD Group.
Ashok Malhotra started young from Jalandhar, Punjab – in 1956 in his early teens and self-published and authored a book called General Education and ventured into education book business. From books and printing press and e-learning to hospitality, retail and design and construction in India and abroad – he dreamt new dreams and worked hard to realise them. As he achieved more, he also desired to give more. Today MBD Group has interests in Publishing, Hospitality, Malls, Realty, Design and Construction, Printing, EdTech, Paper Manufacturing, Notebooks, Skill Development, Capacity Building, Exports, Food & Beverage, Residences and Commercial Office Space in India and abroad
