About The Second Design
We are an education design studio that cares deeply about how people learn in the real world — not just how they pass exams.
Who is behind The Second Design?
Gautham
Educator, builder, and long-time experimenter in the Indian education ecosystem. Over the last decade, Gautham has worked across student startup incubators, ed-tech, and real-world skill building programs — always with one question in mind: “What actually helps people move in the real world?”
At The Second Design, he focuses on program architecture, learner experience, and making sure every initiative is grounded in reality, not buzzwords.
Aruna
Aruna brings the rigor of organised academia and research into our work. With a background that includes astrophysics research at Harvard, she has spent years thinking about how complex ideas can be taught clearly, honestly, and playfully.
At The Second Design, she leads curriculum design, scaffolding of concepts, and the emotional safety of the learning space — so that students and participants can actually try, fail, and grow.
What we believe about learning
Agency over compliance
Real learning shows up as initiative — the ability to start, ask, ship, and adapt. We design for agency first, not attendance or completion rates.
Systems over hacks
Instead of one-off tips and tricks, we focus on mental models and systems that learners can reuse across domains and through different phases of life.
Feeling matters
People don’t just learn with their brains. Safety, identity, and emotion shape whether a program lands or bounces off. We design for that layer explicitly.
What we actually do day to day
Most of our work falls into two buckets: designing programs for others and running our own flagship program, Real World Ready.
Consulting & program design
We partner with businesses, nonprofits, and colleges to design learning environments: academies, finishing-school style tracks, youth programs, and internal capability-building initiatives.
You bring the domain expertise. We help shape it into curriculum, experiences, and structures that people can actually move through.
Real World Ready
Our own flagship program for students and young professionals, often run under co-branded names with partners like TinkerHub. It focuses on agency, system design for life, and navigating an uncertain future.
You can think of it as a parallel “real-world curriculum” that sits alongside formal education.
Want to design a serious learning experience?
If you’re thinking about a program for your students, community, or team, we’re happy to explore it with you. No pitch deck, no jargon — just an honest conversation about what you’re trying to make possible.