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Dipesh Jain: AI, Accessibility, and the Future of Learning with Magic EdTech
00:26:47
What does it take to create digital learning that is truly for everyone? In this episode of Edtech Connect, host Jeff Dillon sits down with Dipesh Jain, Vice President of Revenue at Magic EdTech, a company with a 35-year mission to make learning accessible and transformative. Dipesh shares his unique journey from physical therapist to tech leader and how that background shapes his empathetic, partner-first approach to client relationships. They dive into the critical challenges facing education today—from boosting student retention with modern platforms to navigating the urgent demands of accessibility compliance. Dipesh offers a clear-eyed view on implementing ethical AI that serves real student needs, not just parlor tricks, and explains how his team is making static video content interactive and on-demand. For anyone invested in the future of inclusive, global education, this conversation is a masterclass in mission-driven innovation. Key Takeaways Mission Over Transaction: T...
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- [00:00]
Dipesh Jain
One of the main reasons why a lot of students drop out is because they don't get right information at the right time. So for example, I am a single, let's say I'm a single mother or a single father. I put my son, my kids to sleep. I have like one hour window where I need to do my coursework. If I don't get support during that one hour, it's very highly likely that I'm going to get demotivated. So how do I build a tool or a system that can give me that support at the time that I need it?
- [00:34]
Jeff
Today I'm real excited to have another episode of EdTech Connect podcast and some exciting news. We have broken into the Apple Podcast Top charts top 10 for education. So if you go to your podcast browse categories, we've been bouncing between number four and number nine all week. So please give us a review. Keep listening, pass it on to a friend. We'd love to have keep that position. It's really helped with our listeners and downloads. Today's guest I'm excited to have. He is A Wealth of Knowledge in edtech Dipesh Jain is the Vice President of revenue at Magic EdTech, a leading digital learning solutions provider based in New York. With over a decade of experience spanning sales, marketing and business development, Depeche has played a pivotal role in driving growth and client success in the EdTech space. At Magic EdTech, he leads the sales and marketing functions, helping global education providers transform their learning products through AI accessibility and innovative digital platforms. Before joining Magic, Depeche held leadership roles at Tally Solutions where he significantly increased regional sales contributions and spearheaded successful product launches. An MBA graduate from Narsee Manji Institute of Management Studies and a trained physical therapist, Depeche brings a unique blend of business acumen and human centric thinking to his work. He's also an active voice on Medium, where he shares insights on Ed Tech growth and strategy and digital transformation. So Depesh, it is great to have you on the show today. Thanks for being here.
- [02:25]
Dipesh Jain
Thank you for inviting me and great to be on the show. Jeff.
- [02:28]
Jeff
Well, you have had such a diverse career from physical therapy to Ed Tech leadership. Tell us what inspired this journey.
- [02:38]
Dipesh Jain
So yes, I've had a variety of roles I've played. If I look back at it, I don't think it was planned that way. I don't think any careers are planned. When you are a kid, when you're growing up, you just do what comes to you. And just to give you some context, I did physical therapy because at that time I had two options. I either engineering or physical therapy. I didn't want to do engineering so I did physical therapy when I was in third or fourth year. I like, I don't want to do this. I just went with the flow, I would say. But in the hindsight, I think all those experiences, me being a physical therapist helped me a lot in my role in relationship management, if you think about it. And I really like that non linear journey. So it's been a happenstance, not very carefully planned, but I'm happy that it happened this way and I'm happy to be in that tech role right now. So.
- [03:25]
Jeff
Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us about the mission of Magic edtech. What drew you to that mission and what keeps you excited about the work you're doing?
- [03:35]
Dipesh Jain
I think the mission is digital learning for everyone. With the advent of digital learning, our goal is to make sure that it touches everyone. And that's the mission that I'm very proud of. Something that I consider education to be the biggest gift the world has today. Everybody has the right to education. So what we're doing here really, really resonates with me because education has changed my life, has changed your life has changed everybody's life. And I love what magic is doing to help change people's lives.
- [04:03]
Jeff
Love that message. You work with some of the world's leading education providers. How do you approach building the trust and the long term partnerships in such a competitive space?
- [04:16]
Dipesh Jain
So you're right, we've been around for 30 plus years now, 35 years to be precise. This year actually we celebrate our 35th anniversary and I think we had customers who've been with us for 10 plus years, some almost 15, 20 years. And the only way customers stay with you that long is if you treat them as partners and not, you know, customers. So we, we work with our customers as partners. You know, we are the product and technology development partner. We don't just take the order and execute on it, but we work with them to see, okay, hey, this is what you want. We think that you could achieve it in a better way. So we almost work like an extension of their team rather than a partner. So that's one. I think we really understand their challenges, what do they face in the market. So there is an empathy that comes with that. So I think that's another one. And at the end of the day, the results speak for themselves. Customers will stay with us only if we deliver results year on year. So I think they've seen that and they continue to see that. So we've been lucky in this education space. The customers are also very, very vision driven. So that plays a role in all of this.
- [05:21]
Jeff
Well, how does your team help clients navigate this shift towards ethical AI and accessible digital learning? What's your take on that?
- [05:32]
Dipesh Jain
So you touched on two topics. Both are very, very dear to me and important. Accessibility. I'll talk about that first. So one of the things with digital learning is it makes it accessible to a lot more people. So Magic firmly believes in making learning accessible. We work, sit with our clients and help them understand the power of accessibility right at the beginning of product development. So I think that really helps. Coming to the second part is ethical AI. I think it is a lot of it is written about AI. How do you implement AI? But it's not as easy as it seems, especially in educational institutes. You know, you are dealing with students and teachers and you want to make sure that it's guardrailed. It is non biased. You know, it may not be a cutting edge, but it has to be like safe, secure and reliable. So a lot of times we work with our clients to help them get there, to help them implement AI, which is guardrail, which is secure and at the same time helps improve the core mission of learning. And it's not just another parlor trick. So I think we really, really work and make sure that we help our customers guide through this. Yeah.
- [06:41]
Jeff
Do you have any specific use cases or success stories in that regard?
- [06:47]
Dipesh Jain
Absolutely. I think we have a couple of good ones. We're doing a lot of AI implementation, but there are different use cases. One is student facing use case and then second is internal to an institute. So we're working with one institute or higher ed institute, for example. They have multiple campuses and they spend a lot of time just figuring out their leases and their rent and things like that. So we've helped them build a system for their finance department to figure it out at a click of a button. Like they don't need to go through making sure that the legal complexities are taken care of. They get the information that they need. So this is more for an internal use case for a university system. Now there are student use cases, which we've seen a lot. But one of my favorite implementation is we have a client who has a lot of video content, and video content is almost unidirectional. There is a lecture, you listen to it and you go from there. But we've helped build a tool that helps students interact with these videos and there are a lot of these tools available. But we have customized this tool for this institute that helps them interact with the videos. In the middle of the night, they have a question, they can ask the question to the tool and it will give them exact time in the video where this question is answered so students can refer to that. So I think these two are my favorite. There are many other implementations, but these two just helps improve learning and makes processes efficient.
- [08:06]
Jeff
Yeah, that's a great one. Making video more and more interactive and on demand when you need it. That's great. Can you tell us about MagicBox? What's unique about this platform? How is it transforming digital content delivery?
- [08:20]
Dipesh Jain
So MagicBox is a content distribution ecosystem. Basically takes any kind of content and delivers it across variety of ecosystem infrastructure. So if you have to deliver content within school or universities, your platform has to match a lot of local compliances, single sign ons, LTI integrations and things like that. We built all of this in MagicBox. So if you are a content provider, you can take this platform, white label it, and then use that to distribute your content across different devices to students and teachers. So you don't need to build these tools yourself. You know, as the education ecosystem grows, we have more integrations, we have more compliance is to take care of. We built all of this in the platform. You can take the platform, white label it and distribute your content across millions of learners. So I think it's very unique in that regards, but it solves the problem of building your own versus just white labeling something and sending your content out.
- [09:19]
Jeff
Is it like an open source, your version of a CMS or dxp? Is that kind of what it is?
- [09:24]
Dipesh Jain
It's not an open source, it's the own, the IP of the platform. But it is similar to that. Like as you mentioned, it's a combination of a CMS and LLMs where you can store content and deliver content seamlessly in a white labeled manner.
- [09:37]
Jeff
Okay, can you tell me a little bit about what does your ideal, the ideal school that comes to you, what are their problems that you often solve or what are you best at? What's that common scenario that you're solving for?
- [09:51]
Dipesh Jain
So a lot of schools today are facing a few issues, right? Enrollment is an issue, engagement is an issue. Student retention is an issue. And if you think about it, there are various causes of student retention issues or, or student engagement. Some of them are related to the overall ecosystem of a student. Today a lot of students are, let's say adult learners. They're working multiple jobs, they're learning on demand. You know, at that time it is Very important for the technology to serve them well. So a lot of time when we work with universities, they have online learning, but students are not engaging with the online learning because the platforms and the tools that they use are not designed with this modern student in mind. The modern student is learning on the go, they're learning at night. Your tools and ecosystem need to adapt to that. So that's one of the problem. We help them modernize or transform their tools and learning platforms to cater to the modern student. And I think that's one of the things that improves engagement and improves motivation for retention. There are many other, but this I would say is one of the bigger ones.
- [10:57]
Jeff
Gotcha. So can you work with an institution's existing tech stack and have magicbox or work on top of that or with their current systems?
- [11:08]
Dipesh Jain
Yes. So we can work with the current tech stack and we provide services. MagicBox is a separate platform, but what we do is we work, we understand all the technology platforms and the content that they have and we can work with that to either, for example, the content is static PDFs, which is not engaging. We can convert them into interactive courses or refresh those courses. The platform is, let's say legacy platform and it needs modern ui. So we could work on that. It needs a mobile component. We can work on that. So yes. So that's the services that we provide to engineers.
- [11:40]
EdTech Connect Host
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- [11:45]
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- [12:10]
Jeff
Accessibility and DEI are a big part of Magic's DNA. How do you ensure inclusivity is built into your product development?
- [12:21]
Dipesh Jain
It's a very good question. It's something very close to my heart. So the way to get inclusivity is just the team that we have is also a diverse team of people. So when we get in with our client, we understand the product from a very diverse lens. What we do is we consider accessibility as the cornerstone of. So if you're building any experiences, it has to meet the needs of all students, irrespective of their abilities. So we have a team that is focused on accessibility, which is certified in accessibility standards. We work with our customers to help them understand the roadmap. A lot of the accessibility driven transformation, unfortunately today happens because of DOJ guidelines and mandates. But we work with our customers to make sure that they don't have to face that, so they build products that are accessible first rather than having to retrofit them to make them accessible.
- [13:15]
Jeff
How do you balance the innovation with scalability, especially when you're working with clients in different regions and with different educational systems.
- [13:26]
Dipesh Jain
So one thing that we've learned is that education works very differently in different markets. So, you know, once size fits all, doesn't like what works in America, doesn't works in uk, doesn't work in Poland or India. So we need to be very, we need to be mindful of that. So that's number one when it comes to innovation. We've seen that higher end and education has been slow to innovate and there's a reason for that. You know, you want to make sure that you take students along with you with innovation because you're serving a large population of students coming from different strata. So our goal is how do we make sure that innovation feels more natural rather than a substantial shift in their pattern? Because when you do that, the learning gets disrupted. So innovation in education has to be incremental rather than a substantial shift, because in that case you won't take all the learners along with you. You will take learners who have the resources and means, but what about others who do not? So it's substantial and it's sequential and it is slow and gradual innovation with scalability.
- [14:30]
Jeff
So how are you building AI into your product? Or if, if at all? And how do you see AI helping education the most right now?
- [14:39]
Dipesh Jain
It's a very good question, Jeff. And if you go to any conferences these days, it's like AI, AI everywhere there's so much noise, it is difficult to differentiate. The way we have taken the approach is we have to first very deeply understand this journey of a student and a teacher or an administrator. What is their day to day, what are their life goals? And then trace it backward. What are the friction points for them to achieve those goals? Right. And then how do we build AI that helps them overcome those friction points. So I'll give you one example. One of the main reasons why a lot of students drop out is because they don't get right information at the right time. So for example, I am a single, let's say I'm a single mother or a single father. I put my son, my kids to sleep. I have like one hour window where I need to do my coursework. If I don't get support during that one hour, it's very highly likely that I'm going to get demotivated. So how do I build a tool or a system that can give me that support at the time that I need it. And that's for me is a win that you can achieve with AI rather than trying to build tools that are cool to show but not very substantial to implement. So I would say that as a look at the journey, look at the friction points and take it backwards and build for that. I think that's how we approach any AI implementation.
- [15:58]
Jeff
Yeah, I love that example. It's a great one. Can you share a story or example where your team helped a client overcome a major digital transformation hurdle?
- [16:11]
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, in fact we're doing it right now. So a lot of universities are, right now they have title to deadline in April 1, which is the DOJ title to deadline and which is for accessibility. So a lot of universities have, or even institutes or publishers have content that is not accessible or platforms are not accessible and they need to make them accessible in a quick period of time. That's a major portion of work. So what we are doing is we are helping them achieve those goals by using a mix of automation and manual work where we are looking at their products and platform and quickly auditing them and then remediating those. It's I think a big lift for a lot of them because they've never thought about accessibility in the first place. So now if you look at all the PDF that they've created and to make them accessible, to make them available. So that's I think one example. Another example is developing these AI tools that we spoke about. Like you know, a lot of times you work with the internal teams and they are slow moving. So how do we make sure that we work along with them to build these kind of tools that can be implemented at scale? So I think those are the two examples that come to my mind.
- [17:24]
Jeff
I love those examples. With your leadership across sales and marketing, how do you align these functions to support your revenue growth?
- [17:35]
Dipesh Jain
I have very clear principle when it comes to any go to market team. I think the customer is the primary thing. So you have to understand, each team has to understand the customer deeply. If you understand customers, their role, their motivation, their friction points and then you align with that the internal alignment between these groups become very, very easy. If you don't understand your customer Persona really well. And when I say really well, I don't mean that just their surface level characteristics, but things like what do they go to bed at night with an issue, what is that issue? What do they talk to their partner about? What are the frustrations that they have in their day to day? If I Think if the marketing and sales teams align with that, it becomes very easy to then align within internally because we are then solving for that common pain point. That's the approach that I've always taken. Just understand a customer deeply, spend as much time as possible, interview as many people as possible, but get that deep understanding of a customer. Customer feel better. Yeah.
- [18:31]
Jeff
Just within the US Market, can you talking about understanding the customer, can you talk about the differences between the different types of universities and then within the universities, the types of Personas or job titles you, you work with, for example, Ivy Leagues versus the R1s and the R2s and the private not for profits all the way down to community colleges. Is there more that you work with or you see different challenges with in different areas in the U.S. yeah.
- [19:01]
Dipesh Jain
So there are different ways you can bifurcate the university system. Right. The one that I typically like to look at is what kind of audience is this serving? Is this serving a traditional student out of high school? Getting into, is it serving an adult population which is, you know, this is not their they have done job, they're coming back to study. That's one big difference. Because the user journey for both of them is going to be very, very different. And then taking that lens and then seeing what makes sense for. Because if you're working with a traditional student, chances are they are digitally savvy. If you're working with adult population, even if they are digitally savvy, they have other challenges. A lot of times they are the first generation. So I think that is one of the key parameters that we look at. The other one is whether it's a private university versus a publicly funded and in that what kind of audience that it serve, does it serve more of wealthy students versus students with not a lot of resources? So that also the way they use technology and content is very different. So I think these are the different lenses we take the audience we serve. All these institutes are. On the content side are provosts and beans and academic officers. And on the technology side, it will be a CIO or a CTO to help them build black.
- [20:14]
Jeff
That makes sense. How has your previous experience at Tally Solutions and other companies shaped your leadership style today?
- [20:24]
Dipesh Jain
I credit a lot of my current role to my experience as a physical therapist. Actually, as a physical therapist, you're building relations with your patients. These are patients who are in pain. They don't want to do exercise. But you work with them to make them understand why exercise is important for them. So you build a lot of rapport and patience and relationship. So I think a lot of what I do comes from there. At Tally, I was in channel sales, so I was working with partners. So, you know, my goals were dependent on how they performed. So I was not responsible for what they were doing, but what they did affected my growth. So I learned a different style of working with people. And I think both of those have been very helpful for my current growth.
- [21:08]
Jeff
Right. We talked a little bit about AI. What role do you think emerging technologies like AI and analytics play in the future of digital learning from your perspective?
- [21:20]
Dipesh Jain
There are different rules, but I think the two main things that come to my mind, there are two ways AI is going to change or is changing learning completely. One I touched upon a little earlier, it makes learning bi directional. So today what happens is one of the drawbacks of digital learning. It's very unidirectional. You consume, you consume, you consume. But when you have to talk, you don't have anybody to go to. Right. And that's the limitation of physical education. When you are in classroom, you can talk to your teacher. But today with AI, any piece of learning can become bi directional. If you're reading a PDF, ask a question, get the answer. If you're watching a video, ask a question, get an answer. I think that's a big, big shift and people don't realize how important that is. That's one. The second is today you can personalize learning at scale, which was not possible earlier in a classroom of 30 students or 80 students, 100 students, each learner is different from other learner. But back in the days, it was so difficult to differentiate that learning. Today with these tools, you can actually differentiate personalized learning for each learner so that they achieve the best outcome for them. I think these are the two main thing apart from everything else. I think core principles, the bi directional and personalizing learning at scale is changing education forever.
- [22:34]
Jeff
Yeah, it's pretty insightful. You have a global footprint. Magic EdTech is international. I've had a few other companies that have been global, but not too many. How do you tailor strategies for international markets but stay true to your brand?
- [22:51]
Dipesh Jain
Yeah, it definitely requires a lot of. So because we are global, we have people who are with different backgrounds, people born in different countries, different geographies. We kind of empathize with learning in all these markets. So I think the key is again coming back to the thing in understanding what is the Persona of that market, who are the key audience, what are some of the strengths and weaknesses in that market, and then tailoring our strategy for that so for example, if you go to an emerging economy the digital infrastructure might not be that great. For example India. Right. A lot of learning happens on phones because you know phone Internet is cheap, people are on the go. So how do you take the learning technology and content and adapt it to phones? Because very important in that market versus if you go in some areas Internet is not existent. So how do you give a group good offline experience becomes important in some markets it's very regulated, government regulated policies. So how do you tailor your experiences for that? So I think understanding the users in that market and then the systems and then taking it from there and being very mindful about this, like not taking what works in the US and just adapting it doesn't work. You have to localize it for each geography.
- [24:06]
Jeff
Yeah, makes sense. Well, looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of learning and magic Edtech's role in shaping it?
- [24:15]
Dipesh Jain
I think the thing that really excites me is how it excites me. It also gives me a little bit of fear I'll tell you. So the thing that excites me is how anybody can learn anything using AI. So if you today decide I want to change my career and become somebody else, you can work with AI and create a complete roadmap for you, implement those skills and go about it. I think I find it very, very powerful. I have a six year old, Jeff, his favorite movie is Zootopia and I don't know if you've seen Zootopia. There's a there in Zootopia anybody can be anything. I think today in our world anybody can be anything. Yeah, I think that's how I look at it. What scares me about that a little bit is the gap of equity. Like you know, will people who are wealthier have access to better AI tools versus somebody who's not and will that lead create another gap like we see digital divide and that worries me a lot that how do you make sure that people that it reaches to all the levels of society and I hope that we work towards that because otherwise it's going to create another gap that we see anyways with digital.
- [25:23]
Jeff
So yeah, I thought the same thing about the equity gap. You know when it first came out I thought, you know, any student now should be able to create at least C level work. And now it's even higher I think. And so they, they should be able to. Maybe it'll help with their degrees. But access to the tools is a whole nother story. Right. So well Depesh, this has really been great to talk to you. I'm going to put links to your your company's website and your LinkedIn in the show notes. Thank you for being on the show. It was really insightful.
- [25:54]
Dipesh Jain
Thank you, Jeff. Thank you for your questions and it was great talking to you. Thank you for having me.
- [25:58]
Jeff
All right. Bye.
- [25:59]
Dipesh Jain
Bye.
- [26:01]
EdTech Connect Host
As we wrap up this episode, remember EdTech Connect is your trusted companion on your journey to enhance education through technology. Whether you're looking to spark student engagement, refine edtech implementation strategies, or stay ahead of the curve in emerging technologies, EdTech Connect brings you the insights you need. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an inspiring and informative episode. And while you're there, please leave us a review. Your feedback fuels us to keep bringing you valuable content. For even more resources and connections, head over to edtechconnect.com your hub for edtech reviews, trends and solutions. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.