Enabling Faculty to Flip the Way They Teach
Background
Can you get India’s top engineering faculty to create more engaged, interactive classrooms?
Microsoft’s popular device - Surface device had seen strong adoption among academicians in markets like the US and Australia but replicating that success in India’s higher education space required a different approach. The team was looking for a novel, insight-led strategy that would go beyond product specs and connect with the real needs of Indian faculty.
Approach
A 6-week sprint to reimagine Microsoft Surface’s B2B sales strategy for Indian engineering campuses
- Immersed in life on IIT and BITS campuses sat in live classes, interviewed faculty, EdTech researchers, and Deans
- Mapped the “FLIP” journey: Faculty trying to shift from content delivery to active learning, but stuck with fragmented tools
Key Strategic Lever
Faculty weren’t resisting tech they were already on the journey.
What they lacked was clarity and coherence.
Everyone was talking about “FLIPPED classrooms,” but no one told them how to actually do it without juggling 4 different tools.
We stopped talking about specs and started talking about impact.Surface wasn’t a device. It became the single platform that could power their pedagogy.
Output
- Reframed Surface not just as hardware, but as a pedagogical enabler
- Designed a hands-on 90-min workshop: “FLIP your Classroom with Surface”
- Ran 5 workshops across IIT Roorkee, IIT Guwahati, IIT Madras, IIT Indore & NIT Bhopal
- Converted workshop into a Microsoft-owned, repeatable module
- Triggered enterprise interest and deals across multiple institutes
- Shifted Surface’s India positioning: from productivity tool → high-impact education enabler
SIMPLE IDEA 1
Surface positioned as a one-device FLIP enabler record, annotate, share, prep
Built a structured pedagogy module into the workshop
Co-created a facilitator toolkit + handoff plan for Microsoft teams
