9 Schools from India are Key Part in World’s Biggest Grassroots Online Education Conference

A selection of nine outstanding Indian schools, from kindergarten and primary level to senior secondary, have been selected for a ground-breaking new grassroots education event – World Education Week – to be held online in October.

Each school is to play a starring role in what is billed as the ‘world’s biggest education conference’, a key ingredient in a showcase of 100 schools which will gather online to share expertise and best practices in the inaugural World Education Week, from 5-9th October, in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal on Quality Education (SDG 4).

The hundred schools have been hand-picked for their expertise across a range of educational themes, such as enhancing employability and life-skills; deepening family and community engagement; the use of technology; a focus on wellbeing; and promoting the science of learning and teaching.

Each will share their wisdom to an online audience expected to reach 100,000 worldwide. The ambition driving World Education Week is to accelerate progress to achieve UN SDG 4, a commitment designed to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all.

The Indian schools are:

• The TSWRS Chevella Freedom School in Moinabad, Rangareddy
• The School of Excellence in Khichripur, New Delhi
• Choitram School, in Indore, Madya Pradesh
• Mahatma Vidyalaya in Muthanallur, Bangalore District, Karnataka
• The iTeach RSM English Medium Secondary School in Mundhwa, Pune
• The Government Primary School near Udaipur, Rajasthan
• The Riverside School in Ahmedabad, Gujurat
• Samaritan Mission School (High) in Howrah, Kolkata
• Zilla Parishad Primary School, Kallekhetpada, in the Nandurbar district, Maharashtra

Centred on the theme of ‘Learning Today’, each school will host a virtual event to demonstrate how to bring change, based on their own experiences.

E-Learning Market Expected to Reach $350 Billion in 2025 - Report

The dynamic shift to 'Work from Home' culture has resulted in people adapting to new reality - connecting solely to online platforms to work, teach and learn. While working from home has become the new normal, millions of employees found themselves with more time in hand. Many have channeled their extra time into learning new skills, thus resulting in the sharp increase in the online course enrollment.

The online education industry has shown significant growth over the last decade, offering millions of people worldwide the opportunity to gain new skills from the comfort of their own home. The recent COVID-19 outbreak has encouraged this trend by placing E-learning in the spotlight almost overnight as many suddenly had to work and learn while under strict lockdown measures.

While online education has been growing steadily in the past few years, COVID-19 pandemic has paved the way for stronger market growth. In fact, even before the outbreak, the E-learning industry was skyrocketing with the market expecting to reach a whopping $350 billion by 2025. E-teaching has become a great way to make supplement income. Interestingly, 52% of those who teach professional skills , generate income of $500+ per month and 21% earn between $1000 to $3000 per month.

Payoneer, which streamlines global commerce surveyed online teachers from 40 different countries inviting them to share how the crisis has impacted them and what they believe the future of E-learning holds once the outbreak subsides. As per the detailed survey, the E-learning market is expected to reach $350 billion in 2025 (E-learning platform typically cover two categories: Professional Skills and Foreign language). Up to 74% teachers joined the online education industry in the past two years (74% of professional skills teachers and 73% of foreign language teachers joined the online education industry within the last two years)

90% of all E-teachers would consider making e-teaching their primary source of income in the future. During COVID-19, 82% of professional skills teachers and 55% of foreign language learning teachers saw an increase in course registration. 87% of those teaching professional skills and 54% of those teaching foreign language expect that demand for their courses will increase in long-term.

About Payoneer:

Payoneer’s mission is to empower businesses to go beyond – beyond borders, limits and expectations. In today’s digital world, Payoneer enables any business of any size from anywhere to access new economic opportunities by making it possible to transact as easily globally as they do locally.

Payoneer’s digital platform streamlines global commerce for millions of small businesses, marketplaces and enterprises from 200 countries and territories.  Leveraging its robust technology, compliance, operations and banking infrastructure, Payoneer delivers a suite of services that includes cross-border payments, working capital, tax solutions, merchant services and risk management.  Powering growth for customers ranging from aspiring entrepreneurs in emerging markets to the world’s leading digital brands like Airbnb, Amazon, Google and Upwork, Payoneer makes global commerce easy and secure. Founded in 2005, Payoneer is profitable and has a team based all around the world.

IIT Roorkee Ties with Online Learning Platform Coursera to Offer Online courses

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has partnered with Coursera, a leading online learning platform, to launch new online programs and certifications for a global audience. IIT Roorkee plans to launch high demand programs like Advanced Certification in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and Certification in Data Science, with a goal to expand its online program portfolio on Coursera as part of a commitment to make the coveted institution accessible to learners around the world.

The Advanced Certification in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning program will enable learners from around the world to learn AI/ML skills from India's top technology institute. It is a six months program and is a unique combination of expert lectures, hands-on labs, tutorials, team projects, and workshops ensuring fast-track learning along with building knowledge on coding and mathematics necessary for building expertise in AI/ML besides equipping with classical ML techniques and algorithms, programming with TensorFlow for easy model building, robust ML production and powerful experimentation among others. 

Certification in Data Science program is designed to equip professionals with competencies in the core focus areas of Data Science, Machine Learning, Critical Thinking, Data Collection, Data Visualisation, and Data Management. The course will develop programming skills in Python and SQL relevant, help learners understand the algorithms used in data analytics, and build knowledge about the selected machine learning algorithms such as linear models, kNN, SVM, Trees, Random forest, and neural networks and much more. The program requires no prior knowledge of coding in Python, R, or SQL.

With this partnership, IIT Roorkee joins the ranks of 170 top universities, including Yale, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Imperial College of London — that offer programs on Coursera. Coursera’s 67 million learners across 190 countries will now be able to access IIT Roorkee’s highly sought-after and job-relevant programs.

“Coursera is a leading online learning platform. We are delighted to partner with Coursera to help fulfill the goal of inclusive education of the New Education Policy. Further, this partnership will help us reach out to a global audience of students and professionals aspiring for quality teaching in these sought after areas,” said Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.

“IIT Roorkee is one of India’s top and oldest engineering schools, and millions aspire to learn from this illustrious institution,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera. This partnership makes the institution accessible to a global audience. Now anyone anywhere can take the institute's high-quality programs to learn skills of the future."

IIT Roorkee will launch both these programs on Coursera in early 2021.

About Coursera

Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng with a vision of providing life-transforming learning experiences to anyone, anywhere. It is now a leading online learning platform for higher education, where 67 million learners from around the world come to learn skills of the future. More than 200 of the world’s top universities and industry educators partner with Coursera to offer projects, courses, Specializations, certificates, and degree programs. 2,500 companies trust the company’s enterprise platform Coursera for Business to transform their talent. Coursera for Government equips government employees and citizens with in-demand skills to build a competitive workforce. Coursera for Campus empowers any university to offer high-quality, job-relevant online education to students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Coursera is backed by leading investors that include Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, Learn Capital, and SEEK Group.

About IIT Roorkee

IIT Roorkee is an institute of national importance imparting higher education in engineering, sciences, management, architecture and planning, and humanities and social sciences. Since its establishment in 1847, the Institute has played a vital role in providing technical human resources and know-how to the country.

Harvard University Student-Run Harvard Student Agencies Collaborates With Learn With Leaders to Launch Exclusive Programs for Indian High-School Students

With the goal of connecting students to Harvard University student instructors, experienced faculty, and well-known thought leaders around the world, Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) has collaborated with Learn with Leaders to launch three exclusive programs for Indian high-school students (grades 9- 12).

"We are so excited to partner with Learn with Leaders to bring our courses to India," says Austin Kwoun, Managing Director of The Academies, the academic enrichment programs organized by HSA. "We’re proud to offer curricula that allow students to explore various pre-professional fields, and we hope that the students in attendance can leave the programs feeling enriched and invigorated about their professional futures."

"This partnership will provide high school students in India an opportunity to learn from and get mentored by students at Harvard University. What is unique about these programs is that they are highly interactive and have small class size, which ensure students get individual attention. We started Learn with Leaders with the aim to help students gain international networks that get enabled through these unique programs. Many students in India may not get the opportunity to study abroad, and our vision is to bring them the best right here in the country," says Gunjan Aggarwal, Co-founder, Learn with Leaders.

Shubham Gupta, Co-founder, Learn with Leaders shares, "I love working with students, and the HSA programs provide students a great learning experience. There was no one to guide me when I turned entrepreneur; so what drives me is that I can be helpful to students in high school. At Learn with Leaders, we focus on curating exclusive learning programs spanning diverse subject areas and skills that students need in order to succeed in a dynamic environment. By exposing students to different ideas in high school we hope to foster interest in multiple domains that could lead to more informed choices in future."

The three programs that are being launched:

Young Leaders in Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program 2020
Learn the fundamentals of launching a new business: from idea generation, market research, and business plans and pitches to competitive analysis and fund generation.

Young Tech Leaders 2020 – Introduction to Python
Learn the fundamentals of Python. Get the knowledge, guidance, and resources to understand the basic functions of a code, and create their own video game in Python.

Young Future Global Leaders 2020
A program in International Relations and Global Affairs
Spark an interest in international careers through basic learning in world affairs and diplomacy. Helping students understand and acquire knowledge of world politics and international affairs.

For more information on the programs, visit:

http://learnwithleaders.com/harvardstudentagenciesprograms

https://www.academies.hsa.net/learn-with-leaders

Womennovator and Financepeer Host Discussion on New Way of Learning with Education Experts

A virtual We Talk on "Learner First-Unlocking the Learning Potential" was organized by Womennovator and Financepeer, a peer-to-peer lending platform connecting individual borrowers to lenders digitally.

Womennovator and Financepeer - Learner First-Unlocking the Learning Potential

The organizers invited experts from the education ecosystem and Edtech startups to find the answer to a simple question - 'how do we learn', exploring the role of Learner Centered - Learner First approach to learning.

Panelists included Tripti Shinghal Somani, Founder of Womennovator, Debiprasad Baral, Co-founder & CTO, Financepeer, Dr. Cliff Zintgraff, Chief Learning Officer of SAMSAT, Prerna Gupta, Strategic initiatives at RIL, Komal Sood, Educationalist & Principal at The Army Public School, Manish Gupta, Chairman at JIMS, Charushilla Narula - Founder Director, University Connection, and Digvijay Gagneja - COO, Leverage Edu. The session was moderated by Simmi Puri, Co-founder CISO Cybersecurity.

Even prior to the "physical lockdown", learning outcomes had been suboptimal. Teachers have remained trapped in outdated curriculum, and teaching methodologies have not been able to generate curiosity (to learn) in the minds of the learners. The World Bank believes we are in the grips of a learning crisis, where 60% of children today globally fail to achieve minimum standards of reading and arithmetic as a result of poor-quality teaching. And while infusion of technology in schools might aid in enhancing students' learning outcomes, technology alone probably isn't enough to bring about the desired systematic change.

Tripti Shinghal highlighted that STEM is a novel approach to learning and focuses on practical aspects of education. STEM is an interdisciplinary approach to learning where academic concepts are coupled with real-world lessons.

The session started with Dr. Cliff Zintgraff, who has done pioneering work on STEM learning programs and is a great believer of inquiry-based learning.

"I believe experiential learning is the most engaging and effective way to teach. For learner-centric instruction to scale up, we need to align the designers of the curriculum with teachers in the classroom; we need to know how learners are engaging with the content, especially the ones who are challenged by the topic to ensure equal learning outcomes,AI-Powere," he said.

Deviprasad Baral, from Financepeer, highlighted the power of education and its impact on a person's life.

"Financepeer, came up with this novel idea of bringing in 'affordability' of quality education by financially enabling parents and helping their children realize the education dream. We are creating a 'Netflix' of learning content at affordable pricing and also offering free ERP solutions to academia (for one full academic year) to ensure continuity of their operations. Apart from enabling easy access to education loans, our other value-added service (VAS), is free insurance to parents and children - in case of any unforeseen event or tragedy during the child's academic life - the entire fee is borne by Financepeer. Ours is a unique, AI-Powered "peer-to-peer" lending platform and is playing a vital role in democratization of "quality" education - in making "aspirational India" realize its education dream," he shared with the attendees.

Komal Sood emphasised on how policies in the past have had incremental changes (most of them in silos) without integrating it with the next stage of education.

"Our designers have been quite radical - from School Education to Higher Education, the NEP envisions to provide a new structure to the education sector of the country. Students are free to choose any subjects, all subjects are equal, and can pursue the same in higher education. Restructuring the 10+2 to 5+3+3+4 is a progressive shift towards a more scientific approach to education," she added.

Charushilla Narula said that just like the interdisciplinary approach in subjects being proposed - we need to marry the role of a career counselor and psychologist to work effectively on career development and student well-being.

Digvijay Gagneja, from Leverage Edu, the AI-counselling platform, explained how machine learning algorithms do the matching and help students select their colleges and career paths. However, he agreed that picking the right college and career is indeed the biggest decision of one's life-AI will always be an enabler, but the human aspect (the counselor) is critical.

"Starting from a point where the student has multiple options to choose from, to narrowing it down what is the most suitable college and career, AI kicks in enabling the students, parents and counselors to make informed decisions - AI kicks in "small small step" throughout the student's journey - this needs to be stitched by the (human) counselor. At Leverage Edu, machine learning algorithms also do the matching and help students get connected with alumni of top global universities and working professionals to mentor them," he shared.

About Womennovator

Womennovator is a virtual incubator for women, was started in the year of 2014 with the motive in mind to make a virtual incubator for women entrepreneurs or women who do have exceptional ideas and want to get a platform to grow. It is an initiative with the goal of helping women entrepreneurs to grow local economies by providing business education and training, mentoring and networking, win new revenue contract - domestically and internationally through interaction with Industry leaders, embassy connect, provide media reach (digital and print) through their story on exclusive YouTube Channel, access to capital and Govt. Support schemes across the country.

Learning Matters' Virtual Voice Teacher 'Tara' is Revolutionising the Way Students Learn in India

'Tara' - the proprietary virtual voice teacher of Learning Matters, an ed-tech company headquartered in Bangalore, is radically changing the way students learn in schools and in their own homes across the country.

Tara - a dynamic, two-way interactive teaching assistant that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP) - has been instrumental in solving challenges brought on by COVID-19 in online teaching and learning through the use of voice technology. With the use of text-to-speech and speech-to-text, Tara employs voice technology to create an immersive learning experience.

[caption id="attachment_149764" align="aligncenter" width="884"] Learning Matters Team[/caption]

Tara is extremely light on hardware, requiring only a smartphone or a simple voice-enabled device such as the Echodot and a voice platform like Amazon Alexa. Speaking about the easy deployment of Tara, Gowri Mahesh, co-founder and COO of Learning Matters says, "Tara requires only a minimum 3G connection to function effectively, making it not only a simple interface to use but also very easy to deploy and use anywhere. Further, Tara ensures natural learning by making use of the most natural way in which human beings learn - through conversation and interactivity i.e. listening and speaking. And with content that is aligned to curriculum, engagement with learners is high."

The pandemic has made video-based learning the default mode of teaching. However, video-based learning has its own set of mandatory requirements including high-speed internet and a tablet, laptop or desktop. With Tara, Learning Matters is solving these challenges that are contributing to the digital divide. With just a smartphone and an app, learners can access their lessons and assessments. Furthermore, Tara can repeat lessons, exercises, and assessments as many times as learners need, without any fatigue. She supports individualized learning as well as pair, small-group, and large-group learning. With such varied use cases and capabilities, Tara has proved to be an able teacher assistant that allows students to continue uninterrupted learning, whether at school or at home.

Tara can teach in Hindi, too. "Tara English" an Amazon Alexa skill teaches English to non-English speaking users in an easy and seamless way. By simply saying, "Alexa, Tara English open karo", users can launch the Tara English skill and go through lessons based on levels of proficiency. Tara English is available on the Amazon Alexa skill store.

Speaking of the USP of Tara Saraswathy Ramamoorthy, Co-founder & CMO of Learning Matters says, "The biggest advantage of Tara is that she will not only tell learners they are incorrect but also explain why and correct them. And, because she is a non-judgemental teacher, learners learn without fear, whether they are adults or children. Also, with Tara there is no concern about screen time."

Ramamoorthy G, Co-founder & CEO of Learning Matters speaking about the future plans for Tara said, "Tara is already in use to effectively teach English to students and teachers. Soon, Tara will also teach science and the humanities making it a superior intervention tool in education."

To learn more about Tara from Learning Matters, go to www.learningmatters.xyz/voice.

About Learning Matters

Learning Matters is an ed-tech company headquartered in Bangalore. Their vision is to make education scalable, sustainable and impactful. They accomplish this through their educational solutions and services for schools such as Tara - a virtual, voice teacher; Kengine - a digital content platform on the cloud; StarTeacher - professional development and training programmes for teachers; and ToolBox - activity kits for teachers and students. Their website is www.learningmatters.xyz. They can be looked up on social media at: facebook: @LearningMatters.xyz, LinkedIn: learning-matters and Twitter: @LMofficialHQ.

For editorial queries, please contact priyanka.shetty@learningmatters.xyz or +91 87922 87138.

Lingokids Partners with Dream Centres in India to Address Digital Divide

Lingokids, a curriculum-based English learning app for children between two and eight years old, has partnered with the Dream Centres in India, an educational institution that offers, quality, affordable education to underprivileged children. Featuring content from the Oxford University Press, Lingokids is present in more than 190 countries and has over 20 million subscribers worldwide.

There has been a dramatic impact on education by COVID-19, given that millions of students (90% of total students worldwide) have been forced to study from home due to school closures. Technology and education have merged even more than before the pandemic due to worldwide stay at home mandates, but only a handful of private schools have been able to adopt online teaching methods. The low-income private and government school counterparts, on the other hand, have completely shut down, as they lack access to e-learning solutions.

Mr. Cristobal Viedma, Founder and CEO of Lingokids

According to UNESCO, 1.9 billion learners in 150 countries, particularly students in pre-primary to upper-secondary courses (over 830 million), have been affected. This has forced parents, teachers, and students to use and adapt to e-learning tools. Centuries-old teaching models are now driven by technology and there is an urgent need to tackle the digital divide with inclusive learning solutions, especially for the most vulnerable and marginalized groups. Lingokids has collaborated with NGOs and foundations around the world and has donated over 30,000 licenses of the app to schools and NGOs to help address the digital divide. In India, Lingokids has donated over 600 licenses to the Dream Centres schools, enabling students to continue their learning during the lockdown.

Commenting on this initiative, Cristobal Viedma, Founder and CEO of Lingokids, explains, "The pandemic has changed the future of education and this new normal is here to stay. We need to adapt and ensure that these challenges are turned into opportunities and that we leverage technology to make education more accessible and inclusive for all. E-learning will be able to democratize and personalize education for every student at the same level, thereby eliminating the digital gap. Our association with the Dream Centres is an effort to contribute to the cause of education and to work towards a world of equal opportunity for everyone."

Naomi Hendricks, Co-founder of the Dream Centres

Naomi Hendricks Co-founder of the Dream Centres said, "Lingokids has been an invaluable APP that has enabled us to leverage technology, making early learning fun and accessible to the hundreds of marginalized children we serve. During this Pandemic, we have pivoted our children to digital learning by the licenses that have been so generously given by Lingokids. We live and learn in community, this has, therefore, enabled many siblings and neighbors of our children, to also enjoy digital learning via a single license. 'One by Two' has been adapted to 'One by Four.' Education is a tool that lifts people out of poverty and digital equality is an important factor in building a more equitable world for the next generation."

Lingokids' playlearning™ method is simple: the more kids enjoy playing, the more they'll learn. It enables children to expand their vocabulary, improve their writing skills, and get involved in a safe game-based learning experience. The app offers engaging content and games that teach words, colors, numbers, animals, fruits, and everyday language, while exposing young kids to 21st-century skills and topics, such as creativity, caring for the environment, critical thinking, collaboration, and empathy. Lingokids' online platform also offers weekly plans, blog posts, videos, and several tiers of programming that include a parent community.

To learn more about how Lingokids utilizes technology, safety, and activities to promote the development of 21st-century skills, please visit www.lingokids.com.

About Lingokids

Lingokids is the English learning app for children between two and eight years old. It is currently present in more than 190 countries, with 20 million families using the platform. Lingokids collaborates with NGOs and foundations around the world, such as UNICEF in Latin America, UNHCR and Cruz Roja in Spain, Pies Descalzos in Colombia (driven by Shakira), and the Queen Rania Foundation in Jordan, to break down language barriers and promote equal opportunities for all children. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lingokids donated over 30,000 licenses of the app to schools and NGOs. It has also collaborated with companies such as the Spanish Ministry of Education, Vodafone, Iberia, and Amazon Prime Video. The company has raised $10 million in funds to date from Holtzbrinck Ventures, JME Venture Capital, Sabadell Ventures, BigSur, Reach Capital, All Iron Ventures, Athos, Dave McClures 500 startups, K-Funds founding partners, SHO-zemi Innovation Ventures (a branch of Japans leading network of tutoring schools, SHO-zemi), Incuvest of Singapore, and business angels like Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX. Lingokids received an award for the startup with the greatest social impact in education at the South Summit's enlightED in 2018.

For more information, please visit: www.lingokids.com.

Flinto Raises $7.2 Mn in Pre-Series B Funding; Launches Flintoclass@HOME Bringing Preschool Education to Doorstep

Flinto Learning Solutions, the market leader in Early Childhood Education in India, has raised $7.2 million in Pre-Series B funding, led by Lightbox Ventures. Flinto will be using this fresh flow of capital to support its rapid growth in the early learning space and to expand its newly-launched preschool solution during the COVID-19 pandemic -- Flintoclass@HOME. This innovative preschool model is set to become a game-changer amid the turbulent COVID-19 environment as it delivers hybrid preschool education to the doorstep, allowing children to learn from the safety of their homes. 

Founded in September 2013 by 3 fathers - Arunprasad Durairaj, Vijay Babu Gandhi and Shreenidhi Srirangam, Flinto is built on a mission to change the way children across the world learn and play. 

Backed by a state-of-the-art innovation & research centre on child development, and a passion to impact the lives of future citizens, Flinto has over the years created a remarkable difference by addressing the key touchpoints of a child’s life -- home and school.

Flintobox, the flagship product that came out of Flinto’s innovation & research centre, has won the hearts of 1 million families across India, providing ample understanding into the engagement & development of children across various age groups.

Based on the immense insights from Flintobox was born Flintoclass ‘Preschool In A Box’, powering children with high-quality learning tools and driving passionate entrepreneurs with a robust business model to grow successful preschools. In the last 1.5 years, Flintoclass successfully spread its wings to more than 700 preschools across 8 countries. 

Today, the uncertainties of COVID-19 and the closure of schools across the globe have brought with it a new era of digital learning replacing classrooms. Research, however, shows that this could be detrimental to children below the age of 6. 

Says CEO & Co-founder of Flinto Learning Solutions - Arunprasad Durairaj, “We don’t want COVID-19 to come in the way of a child’s learning. For children below 6 years of age, monotonous online classes can’t be a substitute for the multi-sensory experiences that they deserve. We wanted to ensure that children continue receiving structured hands-on learning without compromising on their safety. With our expertise in early childhood education over the past 7 years and an already successful preschool model, we came up with Flintoclass@HOME -- a blended preschool learning experience. Every month, parents receive at their doorstep an easy-to-use preschool kit with daily hands-on activities for children, along with pre-recorded interactive sessions with our educators.  

In less than a month, we have 3000 enrollments and it is very promising. We will be using the funds to create, expand and distribute this product across the world so that no child’s learning stops due to COVID-19.” 

Prashant Mehta, Partner at Lightbox explains, "By kindergarten, 90% of a child’s brain capacity develops, yet only 10-15% of the funding is allocated towards early learning, globally. The resources for early learning are sparse, and a curriculum with a child-centred pedagogy is rare. At Flinto, we see an opportunity to build a global leader in addressing the unique needs of early learning by co-creating products with children, parents and educators.  We are excited to see that Flinto is becoming more relevant especially during the COVID-19 crisis when the primary place of learning and development is turning out to be home."  

About Flinto Learning Solutions:-

At the heart of Flinto is the Flinto Early Learning Research Foundation, India’s first R&D centre focussing on early childhood development for 2-12 year olds. Extensive research in early learning has yielded three successful products in the last seven years: Flintobox - An extra-curricular innovation focussing on the development of 16 key fundamental skills through unstructured play. Flintoclass - A revolutionary preschool system that ensures high-quality early learning experiences irrespective of whether the class is under a tree or in a state-of-the-art preschool. Flintoclass@HOME - A preschool system that delivers structured early learning to the doorstep and focuses on making a child school-ready from the safety and comfort of home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australian E-Learning Platform Matific Forays into India

• Aims to address the gap in teaching Maths to primary students during the lockdown with Matific Galaxy.


• Aligned with school curriculums of ICSE, CBSE boards with the most updated content.


• Award-winning e-learning platform offering annual plans for just INR 210 per month, with a 7 day free trial for students.


• Matific solutions are proven to help improve student’s math test scores by 34%.


• Matific Galaxy has hundreds of adaptive and intuitive maths activities that focus on core maths skills

Matific, an online Maths resource for kids from primary to Grade 6, has ventured into the burgeoning ed-tech market in India, especially in light of the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis. To address the gap in teaching Maths, Matific has launched its award-winning solution Matific Galaxy, for the India home market at an affordable price. The solution has been designed by mathematics professors and curriculum experts for parents looking for the most updated and engaging solutions that are aligned to their child’s school curriculums.

Matific Galaxy features hundreds of engaging maths activities aligned with school curriculums of ICSE, CBSE boards. Matific’s home product aims to provide a solution to conventional home-schooling and ensure that kids are well prepared for the future and up to pace until the lockdown period ends. This top-rated app features hundreds of fun maths games covering maths skills from kindergarten through sixth grade. Matific’s evidence-based content has been proven to help improve students' math results by 34%. The program provides parents with access to a dashboard where they can keep track of their child’s mathematics achievements and progress.

“Given the current environment, schools institutions are going online around the world as they send students home with no timeline for return. Matific’s solutions enable students to continue their learning process. Matific Galaxy is an award-winning unique platform offering online gamified Maths resources and engaging activities that promote conceptual understanding and problem-solving skills for kids from Nursery to Grade 6.”

“Matific Galaxy is backed by extensive research and designed by senior mathematics professors and curriculum experts, making it the most comprehensive online mathematics resource.

We want to ensure that all students in all areas of India have the opportunity to continue learning during this time. This means ensuring that the price is not an issue.” said Vibha Mahajan, VP, Matific India.

Matific Galaxy is offering an annual plan for just INR 210 per month, which is a practical choice considering its high-quality content and costly solutions in the education space. Matific also offers a 7-day free trial for students. Apart from offering the most advanced and relevant content at the most affordable price, Matific Galaxy works in offline mode as well, taking out the significant overheads of data consumption.

Matific has several games and stimulating maths activities, each of which is equally gripping so that kids end up playing for hours, and learning maths in a process of self-guided discovery. Playful interactions, colourful characters, and gamification help ease math anxiety and boost math confidence amongst students.

Matific is present in over 45 countries with adaptability in 26 languages across the world and has proven to help improve student’s math test scores by 34%. Used by thousands of teachers worldwide, Matific provides relief to parents and enjoyable experience to children during a time of uncertainty. Every day over thousands of teachers and students log in for online teaching and learning.

Available both on Google Play and App Store, Matific Galaxy program can be accessed on desktop, tablets and mobile devices.

About Matific:

Matific is part of a global educational technology company whose founders include top Australian businessman Leon Kamenev, who has launched several high-profile online companies including Menulog and HotelClub. Matific aims to make maths fun and engaging for all students. The Matific Galaxy App was launched in May 2018 to introduce a new, fun, and simple way of approaching maths that simultaneously helps young students develop a lifelong appreciation for the subject and its applications. The Matific resource, which is currently in 45 countries and translated into 26 languages, has been getting excellent results worldwide.

upGrad Partners with Agora.io to Build a Live Learning Platform

The edtech major announces access to the company’s ‘Live Platform’ to all colleges, universities, NGOs and Government bodies free of cost 

upGrad, one of the largest providers of online higher education in India has teamed up with Agora.io, the leading voice, video and live streaming platform, to launch upGrad Live platform, which is built to replicate a real-time classroom learning experience for upGrad learners by providing greater interactivity, real-time doubt resolution, in-class concept check & session analytics to gauge live session performances.

The edtech major upGrad has created some of India’s most advanced online programs to help thousands of professionals achieve their career goals in the areas of data, technology and management. Having partnered with several leading national & International institutions like IIT Madras, IIIT-B, Deakin Business School, Duke CE etc., upGrad brings specialised curated content, engaging sessions, and a plethora of highly qualified faculty including top industry specialists and experts. 

"At upGrad we have taken a strong shift to Learning Experience 2.0 which will be largely driven by the core objective of delivering Personalisation and Outcomes for our learners. Building a live platform was a step in enhancing the learning experience. We had evaluated several possible solutions but chose Agora.io because it is reliable and delivers high-quality content despite network, mobile and geographical challenges. A huge deciding factor in choosing Agora was their dedicated local team that continuously stays on top of their game, striving to ensure the very best of services rendered," said Mayank Kumar, Co-Founder & MD, upGrad. 

"Our partnership with upGrad is an exciting opportunity to collaborate with an innovative and ever-evolving company that is focused on providing an immersive and engaging platform for professionals to keep themselves updated as they advance in their respective careers," said Tony Wang, Co-founder, Agora.io. "Providing innovative, real time engagement solutions in a demanding and fast-growing environment remains a priority as we expand in the region."

As the nation fights a global pandemic amidst a lockdown, upGrad has announced free access of the platform to all colleges, universities, NGOs and Government bodies. The Live platform seeks to diminish the adverse effects of the disruption and allow the offline institutes to conduct live lectures seamlessly.

Founded in early 2015, upGrad offers online programs for working professionals. In a short span of around 5 years, upGrad on-boarded over 21.5K paid learners and impacted more than 370K individuals globally, making it India’s largest online higher-education company, basis gross revenue generated from the Indian market in FY18-19.

upGrad provides programs in the areas of Data Science, Technology, Management and MBA to college students, working-class and enterprises. These programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIT Madras, IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, NMIMS Global Access, Duke CE, Deakin University, Liverpool John Moores University and others.

To further enhance the learning experience, a comprehensive ecosystem has been built which includes one-on-one mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, industry networking and most importantly expert career guidance providing learners holistic support to elevate their careers to the next level.

The company has been awarded the title of ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019. The company received the ‘Best Education Brands’ award by Economic Times and has made it to LinkedIn’s ‘Top 25 Startups’ two years in a row in 2018 and 2019.

Link: www.upgrad.com/

About Agora.io

Agora.io helps apps increase user engagement and retention with a developer platform for live, interactive audio, video, and messaging features at planetary scale. With a dedicated network and device-optimized SDKs, Agora is the only real-time engagement platform designed to cross borders and reach users on low-bandwidth networks and on lower-powered devices.

upGrad and WeWork Come Together to Encourage Collaborative Learning at the Workplace

• Pan India association with upGrad to enhance member experience in WeWork locations.


• Benefits offered to WeWork members include discounts on upGrad programs, personalized career counselling, conducting periodic webinars and expert sessions on key themes among others.


• Access to enterprise focussed events serve as L&D programs for enterprise members, helping engage, attract and retain top talent housed in WeWork’s workspaces

upGrad, India’s leading online higher education company has partnered with WeWork, world’s leading space-as-a-service platform, bringing the two leaders together in a strategic move. Through this association, upGrad will leverage WeWork’s large members base to introduce industry-relevant programs and higher learning to the workplace, with an objective of enhancing member experiences and advancing their professional journeys. WeWork members across all locations in India would now be able to access a minimum 10% discount on upGrad programs, no commitment trials, free personalised career counselling, mock interview and resume screening among other benefits.

To further encourage knowledge transfer of relevant industry skills, experts in fields such as Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Product Management will periodically conduct interactive webinars for WeWork members. These webinars will be a platform for members to interact with the experts and get a first-hand look into current industry trends. Apart from this, focussed hackathons would also be conducted at WeWork locations to help domain experts collaborate extensively on various projects.

50% of WeWork’s members in India are enterprises. Keeping this in mind, the alliance would also host enterprise focussed career fairs and basecamps on relevant topics. These forums would encourage networking, extending learnings and opportunities from members who are part of WeWork’s extensive enterprise base, paving the way towards collaborative learning for all. Additionally, these programs would also serve as L&D programs for enterprise members, helping them engage, attract and retain top talent housed in WeWork’s workspaces.

Elaborating on the partnership, Gaurav Kumar, President- Corporate Development says, "Our new journey with WeWork will bring forth an immersive learning experience for their employees. With industry-ready programs and accurate domain knowledge, upGrad commits to perfect the economic imbalance of adequately required workforce vs the current supply. All our deep learning programs, LifeLongLearning-related content on the app and other social media platforms are designed to embellish the hard and soft skills of working professionals, thereby enhancing their employability quotient. With our outcome-based learning approach, we have seen 20,000+ working professionals’ transition in their careers and we look forward to creating another benchmark with this alliance coming into force."

Commenting on the partnership Karan Virwani, CEO, WeWork India says “Joining hands with upGrad gives us the chance to encourage our members to upskill themselves by accessing valuable insights shared by industry experts. We believe this association will benefit those who are looking to advance their professional growth, no matter who they are, or what they are currently pursuing. Our ultimate goal is to create a highly engaging, collaborative and positive learning environment for all our members and this partnership brings us closer to achieving this”.

About upGrad:

Founded in early 2015, upGrad offers online programs for working professionals. In a short span of around 5 years, upGrad on-boarded over 21.5K paid learners and impacted more than 370K individuals globally, making it India’s largest online higher-education company, basis gross revenue generated from the Indian market in FY18-19.

upGrad provides programs in the areas of Data Science, Technology, Management and MBA to college students, working-class and enterprises. These programs are designed and delivered in collaboration with top-notch universities like IIT Madras, IIIT-B, BITS Pilani, MICA, NMIMS Global Access, Duke CE, Liverpool John Moores University and others. To further enhance the learning experience, a comprehensive ecosystem has been built which includes one-on-one mentoring, peer-to-peer learning, industry networking and most importantly expert career guidance providing learners holistic support to elevate their careers to the next level.

The company has been awarded the title of ‘Best Tech for Education’ by IAMAI in 2019. The company received the ‘Best Education Brands’ award by Economic Times and has made it to LinkedIn’s ‘Top 25 Startups’ two years in a row in 2018 and 2019.

WeWork provides members with space, community, and services through physical and virtual offerings. Its mission is to create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living. As of 2019 fourth-quarter close, WeWork had 740 locations across 140 cities and 37 countries, as well as 662,000+ memberships, including global enterprises. WeWork is committed to providing members around the world with a better day at work for less.

For more information, visit: wework.com

Should Education Be Oriented Around 21st Century Skills?

The modern education system fails to meet the needs of people in many ways. It’s not uncommon for a person to be educated from one of the top universities in the world and still not know how to operate a software required for a job or speak a language that’s required as part of an occupation. All these factors limit a person’s employability, and he/she cannot avail the opportunities that come in the way.

The fundamental reason why people attain education is to be able to make a living. They hope that once they graduate, they’ll be hired by the top companies in the field operating in the market. But the fact of the matter is that the modern education system has failed to keep pace with the demands of the changing times. The present work environment is integrally oriented around technological abilities, whereas most of the education curriculum, particularly at lower academic levels, is still theory based.

Drawbacks of the Existing Educational Format

The present educational system is flawed because of the lack of sufficient exposure of students to the practical environment. Most of the education takes place in a closed classroom environment wherein the maximum that an institution can achieve is called a guest speaker or show the students documentaries. None of this is a substitute for practical exposure gained in the field.

Most of the exams and evaluation mechanisms are theory based. To perform well in them, a student has to cram up the text. While this polishes one’s cramming ability, the information stored in mind this way lasts only as long as the exam itself. That’s why so many students need help from essay writer. When students are exposed to practical field situations and are required to make decisions considering the challenges and problems at hand, they cannot manage to make rational choices. While learning theory is important, it’s even more important to know how to apply it.

Another big flaw in the current system of education is its backwardness compared to the technological advancement and fast pace of research and development in the present age.  The curriculum, practical work, and laboratory work taught in most schools today is the same that was taught to the students two decades ago. On the other hand, the world has witnessed a revolutionary change concerning technological growth and level of sophistication.

How to Best Revive the Current Education System

All these factors impact a need for the academicians to revisit the prevailing trends and assess the changing needs of times. The curriculum requires increased integration of the latest technology both as the medium of learning and as the content of the program. Students should have uninterrupted access to advanced technology at schools along with expert guidance and coach on its use. It’s advisable to make studying computer languages compulsory on students, and they should be made part of the curriculum from a much lower academic level.



Students can opt to keep studying them in more depth at higher levels, but they’ll anyway get sufficient knowledge when they’ve studied the basics in middle school and high school. Studying computers derives its importance from the fact that every field ranging from medicine to engineering and economics is computerized. Education cannot be complete unless a student knows computers well. Ideally, all students should be prepared for basic fixing of issues with computers.

Moreover, there should be an increased emphasis on the learning of a variety of languages. The world is becoming increasingly multicultural with every passing day. While many opportunities surface with such fast-paced globalization process, people’s ability to utilize them is impaired because of their lack of knowledge of languages.

Education System Should Be Focused on Developing These Skills

While talking about the redesigning of the education system, it is important to review the skills that the course content should be oriented around. The skills of the 21^st century are based on tools that can be used globally to advance learning, patterns of thinking, operating, and generally living anywhere in the world. Such skills include but are not limited to creative thinking, reasoning or critical analysis skills, metacognition, problem-solving, global citizenship, communication, and collaboration.



In addition to these skills, 21^st-century skills comprise numeracy, writing literacy, reading, and comprehension, digital literacy and information and communication technology. The course content should be revised so that it has increased focus and emphasis on these skills. It’s equally important to utilize technology to pass instruction and make technology a fundamental element of every academic level.

EdlogIQ, India’s First Digital Brain Fitness Company

EdLogIQ (which stands for Education Logic and IQ) is a Noida-based early-stage startup focused in Brain Fitness Sector developing innovative products for enhancing human brain health. The founders Raghu Raaj, Abhishek Krishna & Anish Singh have been working in this domain since 2012.

EdLogIQ started in Delhi and launched its 2 products Neuron Gym and Project Prodigy to make a difference in people’s lives and help them evolve in an environment of continuous learning.

1) Neuron Gym: Neuron gym is a scientifically developed tool designed to rewire the neurons in order to increase the productivity, creativity and concentration and decision making skills of an individual. With analytical tools embedded in it, Neuron Gym assures to track your performance with time for optimum results. This product is available as an Android app.



2) Project Prodigy: It is a career profiling test for students of class 9th-12th, based on the concept of Multiple Intelligence. On the assessment of aptitude and personality of the student we provide a detailed career report to guide them to select the right career.
Earlier Project Prodigy was conducted in Offline mode but they are now in the process launching the online version for it.

"I came across the concept of Neuroplasticity-The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. And then came up with the idea of enhancing brain through entertaining ways. This sector is in its infancy with few companies in US and some parts of Europe. We are the first and the only company in Indian subcontinent focusing on digital brain fitness," says Raghu, an IIT Roorkee passout. "A plethora of research is being done in the field of neuroscience and is one of the most emerging field for future markets. Also it is forecasted that the market for digital brain health to grow exponentially to $8 billion by 2018," added Abhishek, who also graduated from IIT Roorkee.

"Everybody wishes to be sharper and smarter. We do exactly that and that too in an entertaining way. Firstly we are keeping things simple, as a very large chunk of world population is not familiar with the concept of brain training through our scientific games based on the concepts of neuroplasticity, we are creating acceptance. The games are designed in such a way that both a 10 year child and a 60 year man can get easily through it. Secondly it’s free unlike other products in this domain," says Anish, an alumni of BIT Mesra.



They we have partnered with Centre for training in Primal Leadership (CTPL), Asia for collaborative research and are in talks with various research Institution in the field of neuroscience for collaboration. They have a team of 12 energetic young minds working on a variety of technologies and tools for website, app and product development. They have received funding (amount undisclosed) from Indian Angel Network (IAN).

In future, they plan to create "Physical Version" of Neuron Gym. “This will be a physical place just like any ordinary gym with the availability of both digital as well as hybrid physical games which will help people to get smarter, sharper and faster,” says Raghu. They are also going to start building brain training products customized for a particular profession. “For different profession different cognitive skills are required. We are soon going to start up with sports section, developing brain training platform for cricket and baseball players,” adds Abhishek. A second version of Neuron Gym (app) is in their pipeline with several new features and a better improved UI. They hope to launch this by December.

As a message for future entrepreneurs, Anish says, "Believe in your idea but don't fall in love with it. Involvement is the key, try new things, commit mistakes but do learn through them. And remember 10 years down the line you will regret more for things you didn't do than things you did. So start doing." They believe that the best time to start is now!

How To Incorporate Technology In Education

Integration of technology and education is inevitable in today’s day and age. Our lives are entwined with the frequent usage of the various digital appliances that has definitely made life easier for us. Nowadays even education system has seen an enormous change globally. There was a time when students used to completely depend on pen and paper; and today education has drastically evolved and has become digitally active.

Higher education has seen technology becoming a part of their daily curriculum. Most of the campuses are going digital and the availability of the online world is free flowing.

Here are few ways to incorporate technology into your institute:

1. Wi-Fi Campus: First and foremost, get Wi-Fi on campus. Make your institute completely Wi-Fi enabled. The capacity of your Wi-Fi should be reasonable, keeping in consideration of all the students and teachers who would use it. You could put a limit for usage per system and ask students to pay if they cross a certain limit.
   
   
   The availability of Wi-Fi on campus, helps the students and teachers to be online and on the same network. Plus communication gap reduces and flows smoothly between individual on the same campus.

2. Digital Badges: This basically indicates an individual’s proficiency level. Experts believe that in the future digital badges would either replace diplomas and certificates or use a combination of them. Digital Badges would be a virtual proof of your qualification and competencies.
   
   
   For example if you have a Microsoft certification for some course, a JAVA certificate or say you have completed a course in animation or graphic design etc. On completion on your course you would be given a digital Badge for it.
   
   
   When you share your profile with recruiters, you would not be required to give certificates and diplomas, your digital badge would work as a validator for your competencies.

 

3. Devices: Today, in this virtual day and age most of the students are already carrying various devices like smart phones, tablets, laptops etc. Institutes need to make sure that they incorporate that in their day to day activities.
   
   As an educator you cannot ignore the fact that, the mobiles etc. have become a part of our daily lives, so if students are sitting in your class 'whatsapping', why not include mobile phones as a medium to gain more information and knowledge. This way student would still be on phones, but they would also be ‘present’ in class.

 

4. Digital Courseware: To make use of the digital devices, the institutes need to make some of their courseware digitally available. You do not need to make your entire course online, because even in-class sessions are required; may be choose courses or subjects that require more self-study and that can be followed by an interactive classroom.

5. Analytics: Analytics are used to give information for various websites in terms of viewers, page traffic, what they view, which page is surfed more etc. This concept can be brought to the educational institutes, to keep a track of what students read, how long they spend on it etc. This knowledge would help the institute to know what they should do and what they should re-think. 

6. Virtual teaching: As an institute, you can make use of Skype and other online video conferencing software, through which you can get expert professionals and ask them to take a class from where ever they are. Virtual teaching helps students to interact with experienced people of the same field.

Plus this concept can be used to pre-record classes etc. and students who are pursuing distance learning or online courses – can view these videos anytime they want.

YouTube Launches Open Pathshala - Channel For Indian School Curriculum Class 1-12

Lately, YouTube India has launched YT-Edu India Channel dubbed as Online Pathshala which consist videos, tutorials for India specific curriculum where students can find class 1-12 specific videos at a single destination. The YouTube channel will be indeed be beneficial to students in India as it do have extensive playlists of explanatory videos which irrespective of any education board act as an efficient online platform.

Online Pathshala is Youtube channel created & curated by a bunch of awesomely talented teachers who wants to make learning fun and enjoyable allowing students learn at their own pace by pausing, rewinding and playing videos online. This channel brings the best videos on You Tube for all the students in Class 1-12

"YT-Edu India" Channel has been created by educators to make discovery of curated videos, easier. The channel's playlists have also been optimized and made user-friendly by creating subject specific sections and easy to access channels for all classes. As per Google, "The GEG community and teachers are continuously engaged in the process of improving the current playlists by adding new videos and replacing existing ones with better videos."

The subject covered in YouTube's Online Pathshala are - Arts & Craft, English, Civics, Computers, Geography, History and Maths. For 11-12 standards students it also have video playlists for Physics, Chemistry, Accountancy, Business Studies etc.

A group of tech savvy teachers and GEG India community (Google Educator Group) with considerable classroom experience, have explored the impact of technology on student learning and curated videos for various subjects, keeping in mind the challenges faced during day to day learning.

The contents and information contained in this channels and playlist are not specific to any single curriculum or board such as CBSE, ISC or any state boards in India, the channel, however is intended only for reference purposes for various classes and subjects across Indian school curricula.

Amitabh Bachchan Join Hands With Worldoo.com To Help Transfom Internet Use For Children

Worldoo.com is first-of-its-kind website in India that aims to create a responsible environment for children to learn, express & play and an online portal aims to make the internet safer for children. India's superstar Amitabh Bachchan has joined hands with the website to endorse Worldoo's latest feedback campaign for children called 'Let's Build'.

The feedback campaign, inaugurated with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan's backing, will invite parents, kids and educators across the country to speak up and be heard, in what they would like to see in a whole new world!

Speaking about his association with worldoo.com, Mr. Amitabh Bachchan said - "The internet space is constantly evolving and has proved to be an exciting tool of communication. Today, children are born with technology in the palm of their hands, immediately preferring tablets to teddy bears!"

"In such a scenario, it is important for parents to embrace the role that Internet plays in their child’s life instead of shying away from it. They need to collaborate and communicate with their kids to welcome them to the online world. The future is here." added Mr.Bachchan.



Users can sign in on worldoo.com, as parent, child or educator, and send in their thoughts to this unique initiative which also has a feedback campaign that will run across online and offline platforms.

Worldoo.com has associated itself with many partners such as Cartoon Network, National Geographic, Jeff Corwin, Designyard, Sentosa Tourism, Zapak, Miniclip, Pidilite, Asian Paints, Sony Pictures and many other kid brands.

Founded in 2013 by Mr. Monish Ghatalia, Worldoo.com is the 3rd most viewed kids site in India and aims to increase its reach and awareness across the globe and aims to become the largest kids platform by 2015. Worldoo team is also working towards global launches in South East Asia, Middle East, UK, US in the years to come.

Worldoo.com is a completely bootstrapped/self-funded project and does not seek an external funding for now.

Ungineering Is Online Student Community To Build High-End Software Product Of Your Own

Active participation, dedication to learn and the willingness to build software of the highest quality, this is all that Ungineering.com expects out of the people it hires. Based out of Bangalore and founded in 2012 by Anuj and Avishek, Ungineering is a bunch of entrepreneurs and want you to be no less. 'Build your own stuff and learn to sell it. We will help you with it and will learn along the way as well' is their motto.

In Bangalore during his one year stint with IBM, Anuj came across two sets of people – a) good engineers from bad colleges and b) the so-called “bad” engineers from good colleges. He realized that both sets were essentially looking for something -Category A- for a platform and Category B-for that spark which could unlock their potential. Around the same time, Avishek, while pursuing his post graduate at IIM Ranchi, came across a lot of start-ups which were extremely lean and were struggling to handle their IT needs. Realising that outsourcing to professional IT companies would push back their hopes of breaking even by at least a couple of years or so, the duo came together and soon after they realized that, irrespective of what the general sentiment is, good web developers are always in demand. "We couldn't have continued to work without payment forever and the idea seemed too good to give up upon as it solves two very pertinent issues – providing talent a platform and vice-versa" says Avishek on what prompted them to start this company-a training portal-cum-service provider.

What we can conceive Ungineering as, is a learning platform for the engineering students to make themselves capable of building software products end-to-end under a structure and guidance. In the process, a team of students will be formed that will build high quality software products, while they are in college. The students will get to work on all the aspects of software development, including designing the UI, coding, testing, and deployment .The idea is to give the student an exposure and an opportunity to build live software that people will use (firstly they have to find it useful enough) and give them the confidence of building a real life software product (confidence is a good substitute for money, isn't it?).

Ungineering is a double-edged sword in the right sense – their clients get industry standard work done at prices which at the worst are reasonable while college students, who are hired as interns, get to work on actual client projects. “Then again the key does not lie in doing it; it lies in doing it well. That is where our training comes into place. An Ungineer, fresh out of college, is technically at least one year ahead than 80% of his classmates. This works especially for start-ups who are adverse to hiring fresher because of the slow rate of ROI.” adds Anuj.
Currently the technical partners for Internshala, Ungineering.com works on LEMP stack (nginx) with object oriented MVC framework on UNIX platform, with the servers being hosted on Amazon AWS. With three part-timers currently and eight Ungineers, they have been able to set up a state-of-the-art training process for college students during their summer break.

[caption id="attachment_95253" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Team Ungineering[/caption]

"Somewhere in the future we will be a mix of full-time employees, part-timers, interns and a lot of working-from-home students working on real-time project briefs from clients / our own products all across India (and maybe even the world!)", says Avishek, who is optimistic about what the future holds for their team.
“We did not find the need for funding till now but we aren't averse to it – we'll go looking for it as and when the need arises” says Anuj, who also has a message for young entrepreneurs stating “it’s always a good idea to keep a tab on the finances. It might take you ten ideas to succeed and you have to space out your savings accordingly to ensure that you get to the tenth idea with fuel in the tank".

"Anuj got an offer from one of our clients to become their CTO drawing a salary which was at least four times what he makes from Ungineering now. Also,we gave up a project with a client who has recently made it very very big because there were creative differences – we know we did the right thing now but at that time it had seemed very difficult to convince ourselves so especially as we had almost completed the project" Avishek recollects these two incidents and realises how difficult it has been over the course of time to stick around and keep believing in what they were doing. “Things like paid marketing and funding still bother us – we have to convince ourselves from time to time that we are doing the right things for us at present by not doing them” he adds.

eDreams Edusoft is Ex-Wipro executive's Startup which is changing way how students learn

eDreams Edusoft Private Ltd is a Bangalore based education technology start-up which was established in 2010. The company has a team of very well educated and experienced individuals working hard to spread the light of education.

More than 30 top schools of the country have already enrolled with the company to work as its co-creation partners. Talks are one with many other schools. The company has also tied up with a lot of research organizations and is working towards basic and applied research in order to develop products which are globally first.

eDreams has developed FunToot, which is cloud based software that uses natural language processing tools and artificial intelligence to give personalized tutoring. The software interacts, observes, diagnosis, assesses, encourages and tutors each individual student based on his or her characteristics.  It encourages fun-filled learning and helps inculcate innovative thinking among students.



FunToot costs between Rs. 150 to Rs. 300 a student per month and doesn’t require installation of any additional hardware or software. You just need to have a computer and an internet connection and you’re ready to go. It is currently being used by more than 20,000 students in over 30 schools. The main idea behind developing FunToot is to eliminate the learning deficit in every student which has developed as a result of homogeneous nature of teaching in modern classroom.

eDreams was founded by Rajeev Pathak, who has earlier worked as a GM-Software Products Group at Wipro. Pathak holds a masters degree in Business Administration from IIM Bangalore and is M.Tech from BITS Pilani. He has 19 years of work experience behind him. According to Pathak, It gives him immense satisfaction to see thousands of kids being benefitted in the country through FunToot’s deep personalized learning.

The core team at eDreams has a combined experience of about more than 100 years in software product development, business innovation and research. Their combined efforts have made eDreams a winner at Bloomberg Pitch Award 2011-12 and a finalist at Marico Innovation Foundation Award 2012.

Providing personalized learning to each individual has now become one of the greatest challenges of modern schooling system but eDream’s FunToot is a great solution for this challenge.

eDreams Edusoft is Ex-Wipro executive's Startup which is changing way how students learn

eDreams Edusoft Private Ltd is a Bangalore based education technology start-up which was established in 2010. The company has a team of very well educated and experienced individuals working hard to spread the light of education.

More than 30 top schools of the country have already enrolled with the company to work as its co-creation partners. Talks are one with many other schools. The company has also tied up with a lot of research organizations and is working towards basic and applied research in order to develop products which are globally first.

eDreams has developed FunToot, which is cloud based software that uses natural language processing tools and artificial intelligence to give personalized tutoring. The software interacts, observes, diagnosis, assesses, encourages and tutors each individual student based on his or her characteristics.  It encourages fun-filled learning and helps inculcate innovative thinking among students.



FunToot costs between Rs. 150 to Rs. 300 a student per month and doesn’t require installation of any additional hardware or software. You just need to have a computer and an internet connection and you’re ready to go. It is currently being used by more than 20,000 students in over 30 schools. The main idea behind developing FunToot is to eliminate the learning deficit in every student which has developed as a result of homogeneous nature of teaching in modern classroom.

eDreams was founded by Rajeev Pathak, who has earlier worked as a GM-Software Products Group at Wipro. Pathak holds a masters degree in Business Administration from IIM Bangalore and is M.Tech from BITS Pilani. He has 19 years of work experience behind him. According to Pathak, It gives him immense satisfaction to see thousands of kids being benefitted in the country through FunToot’s deep personalized learning.

The core team at eDreams has a combined experience of about more than 100 years in software product development, business innovation and research. Their combined efforts have made eDreams a winner at Bloomberg Pitch Award 2011-12 and a finalist at Marico Innovation Foundation Award 2012.

Providing personalized learning to each individual has now become one of the greatest challenges of modern schooling system but eDream’s FunToot is a great solution for this challenge.

Tutoslive lets you learn how to develop websites in 45 days

Tutoslive is a live training portal for developing websites from scratch. Started in Nov 13th 2013 Sagar Podilapu teaches the 250 registered students out of his Bangalore office. A one man team, Sagar handles the portal from designing, developing, marketing to training and post-processing of recorded classes.

Tutoslive offers live online web development course where in interested students can watch the class at your convenience from your home. The classes are Live and are well scheduled ahead. The students are also offered a live project, mock-up interviews which is hosted on the tutoslive.com which students can showcase to their interviewer

The students will be able to meet the real time developers every weekend in the class to answer their questions. These developers explain you the situation in the real world, unlike your college days.

[caption id="attachment_93110" align="alignleft" width="312"] Sagar Podilapu, Founder of Tutoslive.com[/caption]

After graduating from University of Missouri Kansas City, Sagar worked as a PHP Web Developer at Inkoniq, Bangalore. He quit his job recently when he realized that fresher’s who seek job or have jobs don’t generally know where to start and how to execute. Hence he took the initiative to bridge the gap. The students who miss out the live sessions of the classes can take help from the recorded sessions which are also available online.

"Even before doing this full time, I have tested the model for 6 months by giving away the classes for free" says Sagar. They use a third party tool for the Live Classroom and PHP for LMS. We asked him about his expansion plans and he said, "The only expansion plan I have is to bring together more people who work the same cause as I am doing. There is a long way to go for it."

As a message for future entrepreneurs, Sagar said "Follow Lean Methodology to constantly check if you are going in the right direction. A startup is all about metrics and targets. Hook or crook, get them fixed."

Tutoslive is based out of Bangalore and till now have taught around 278 satisfied students.