I want to help Indian students , parents and teachers discover high quality free online content, mapped to the syllabus, so they can do well on their exams – and discover the joy of learning !
I want to fund a social impact entrepreneur who will implement this.
There is a lot of free high quality educational content, but Indian parents aren’t aware of this. This is partly because
1. They think free is of no value
2. EdTech startups sell aggressively , which is why they occupy mind-share
3. This resource needs to be marketed well , so that it goes viral.
If parents can get high quality free content, why will they waste their hard-earned money ? Why do they confuse price with quality ?
The site should be a guide to the tons of free high quality content availaable online. This should be curated, and users should be encouraged to rate the content. This content could be in the form of
Videos
Lesson Plans
Notes
E-learning courses ( MOOCs)
Lecture
Games
Quizzes
Apps
We need to provide varying levels of detail and granularity . It should me mapped to the syllabus. It should allow people to browse ( like DMOZ), as well as to search. It should be as easy to use as Google; and also serve as an EduWiki so users can contribute
Who are we targetting ?
The user persona is my car driver
Lower middle class
Rs 25000 salary pm
Wants to give his children a better future
Not sure what to do
Vulnerable and gullible
Gets cheated by ads
This resource should be valuable during the many points of a student’s journey
When they want to explore their personal interests ( for example, learn more about dinosaurs, just for the heck of it !)
Flipped classroom teaching – prior to the class
Post classroom – to reinforce what they have learnt
Doubt clearing
Pre exam
Post exam
Our role will be that of a guide.
The end goal is to to nudge students into becoming self-learners
In order to grow this, we need engaged volunteers, who will create awareness about this free resource, and contribute to it.
Getting celebrity endorsements will help !
I have a hunch this will be useful , but in order to prove it, we need to run experiments.
Start small – for example, cover only 5th grade maths initially, and go deep.
We will make mistakes. The plan is to learn from these , and then grow this for other subjects; and then for other grades
We also need to engage teachers ! They need to validate our efforts and contribute to them.
We can generate revenue to make this sustainable by offering online paid tutoring. If students do this ( peer to peer), this will be low cost. Teachers can charge what they feel works for them.
I am an active angel investor who funds frugal innovation.
I want you to set milestones , so I can fund this in tranches
Proof of concept for a single subject in a single grade
Then do this for all the subjects in the grade
Then for K-12
I have a budget carved out for this, so funds aren’t an issue
How would you go about doing this ?
Milestones ?
How would you define success ?
Looking for a missionary social impact edutech founder
I am happy to engage with failed Edutech startup founders !
Please email me at malpani@malpaniventures.com
Hi Sir,
Glad that you address this trend. Ed-Tech has becoming FMCG like product. Parents having a mindset of purchasing products based on brand has played a great role in this trend. And of course only few of them knows the effect of education in longevity.
Somewhere I believe your true brand ambassadors are your costumers and your true investors (in a long run) will have to be your costumers.
The average incoming parent (INR 25k) has already given 15% of his salary in School. I believe schools must be standardized in all respect by entrepreneurs like us.
When I say standardization it means utilizing each and every stakeholders in the school ecosystem to provide collaborative values (From Parents to Principals). It should not be just a digital solution which enables you to mark attendance, notifications, it should be more than that.
Again I must say it’s a catch 22 kind of situation. But if we add values in Parent’s life and Teacher’s life, they will definitely inculcate it.
I will be more that happy to make my product reach distance through parents and teachers. And somewhere after 10- 15 years, kids grown up might think the value our company has provided. (Ye thoda jyada ho gaya but I am head-strong about it).
Yes, I also believe that social impact edutech startups can transform education in India
But all this is already available in more ways than one!
Khan Academy, everyone is aware of. My NGO has an online audio library that has academic and enrichment content in 23 Indian languages so that the last mile which does not know English is not left behind. I am sharing some links below (at the risk of repetition):
1. National Digital Library of India – https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/ – GoI initiative
2. Esha’s Online Audio library – http://clabil.org/audio.php – This is the library that we created.
3. UGC Moocs – http://ugcmoocs.inflibnet.ac.in/ugcmoocs/
4. Brainly.in – Peer to Peer learning – funded startup
5. Quizizz.com – Online quizzes on many topics
6. Proprofs.com – Same as quizizz. I use their quizzes often.