Eduvoice | The Voice of Education Industry

Tag: Co-founder

  • Upgrad ing To Next Level

    Upgrad ing To Next Level


    Mayank Kumar, Co-founder and MD, upGrad, talks about their education philosophy, their offerings and future plans

    What started in the year 2015 as an endeavour to help working professionals simultaneously upskill themselves while continuing to work, has now expanded to offer degree programmes and an array of courses in India and abroad. upGrad became a unicorn in 2021 with a valuation of $1.2 billion and has impacted more than 7 million users globally through its programmes.

    For Mayank Kumar, the success of edtech lies in its foundation philosophy, which is to drive career outcomes. Building on this,upGrad has expanded its Life Long Learning suite and worldwide university network. “We create online courses in partnership with academicians and industry experts to foster outcome-oriented learning amongst our learners and drive tangible career ROI (return on investment) through job switches, salary hikes, promotions or confidence to empower them to perform better for maximum business outputs,” explains Kumar.

    Growth story

    In the last year alone more than 450 career transitions into the MBA domain for its learners happened in quarter one, with the highest cost to company hike of 328 per cent. It became the biggest batch to receive placements across more than 75 companies.

    In order to build a successful organisation, Kumar states, “You need to stay truly committed to solving a problem and need to be persistent in your efforts.” There are highs and lows in every industry, perseverance is necessary. On the business end, Kumar advises that it is imperative for organisations to create a business model that is scalable, sustainable, and non-negotiable. And it should add value to its customers. Moreover, he states. “Instead of focussing on short-term valuations and growth, edtech companies should focus on products and strategies that are for the long run in the business ecosystem.”

    For this year, upGrad plans to focus on domestic expansion. While the focus is on building a strong online platform, learners are encouraged to meet the upGrad team at their centres in person while choosing the right programme for themselves. To ensure the company stays connected to its user base, upGrad will continue to build on its offline presence and form strategic partnerships with academics and industry.

  • Providing Accessible Affordable Accountable Education

    Providing Accessible Affordable Accountable Education


    Dhumil Javeri, Co-founder, Klassroom Edutech, chose education of millions over a high-paying MNC job

    Teaching became a passion for Dhumil Javeri very early on in life, when he started teaching physics at some coaching centres as a IInd year engineering student. Upon graduation in 2009, he had the option of joining an MNC which had selected him. But he chose to continue what he loved doing, ie teaching.

    Starting with a coaching centre catering to students of classes VIII to XII and helping students with the preparation of exams like JEE, Javeri and his family, including mother and brother, decided to scale up the operation in 2016. The idea was “to impact millions of students so that they get education that is accessible, affordable, accountable and flexible in terms of mode of learning. The entire education system runs on these four parameters.” They started with the premise that impacting even one member of a family through education can uplift an entire family.

    Javeri says about the decision, “We are proud to say that we were the category creators for hybrid learning in 2016 when there were only offline or online players. We launched the product in Mumbai. Currently we have close to 150 partner centres in Mumbai, Delhi Pune, Nashik and Ahmedabad.” Javeri calls these physical centres ‘asset-light’.

    Along with that, they have 60,000 learners on their platforms, learning from 500 different locations.” He adds, “The best part of our platform is that it’s highly affordable. So someone could aspire to become an engineer or doctor at Rs 5,000 or 7,000 for an entire year.”

    Recognition for work

    Javeri is proud that their work was recognised by the PM Narendra Modi last January when they were among the companies selected for live interaction with him. During the interaction, Klassroom made some policy recommendations too. “Fortunately, we are working with 650 central government schools and above 600 state government schools of Rajasthan, implementing NEP and training teachers in those schools.”

    Elaborating on this, he says, “Since we are working with central and state government schools, all the content that we are creating is completely NEP-ready. It’s approved and verified.”

  • Drivers Of Success – BW Education

    Drivers Of Success – BW Education


    Kaustubh Khade, Co-founder, Spark Studio, on the requisites for holistic development and future success of today’s young generation

    The journey of Spark Studio has been quite exciting. They started in 2021 and soon got selected by YCombinator. Starting with 4 courses, they now offer 14 courses and have above 60,000 students from over 10 countries learning with them. They have expanded beyond live online classes and have launched a game-based English learning app. “It’s been a great validation that customer demand or attendance and renewal rates didn’t go down post-Covid, which shows that it’s a large market with a deep consumer need and that our model is offering unparalleled convenience with a great learning experience,” says Kaustubh Khade, Co-Founder, Spark Studio. They are launching their courses in the US now and have tied up with 41 schools to offer their courses to 7,200 students through a B2B model as well.

    Spark Studio was a medal winner in the ‘Best E-Learning/Online Tutoring’ award category. “We’re honoured to have won this award and stoked to be in the august company of other great edtech brands,” expresses Khade on receiving the award. He believes that what made them stand out is their great metrics on retention, completion rates and customer happiness and the fact that they are addressing a large gap in the Indian education system that schools haven’t been able to cater to.

    Addressing the gap

    While schools fulfil a critical role, learning is not limited to what schools can offer. “Schools cannot customise learning for different interests or different pace of learning. This is where skill-based or interest-based edtech is filling the gap,” says Khade.

    As per him, success in life is not necessarily correlated with marks in school. Confidence, creativity, critical thinking, leadership are stronger drivers of success. A study by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Centre showed that 85 per cent of job success comes from well-developed soft and people skills and only 15 per cent from technical skills and knowledge. Kids have never been taught this till now, which skill-based techs are finally offering.

    The edtech platform has positioned itself as a player focussed on high-quality outcome-focussed learning in English, communication skills, music and art. The company is a global player with presence in 10 countries and they are building teacher supply from several countries and have partnered with global institutions such as TEDEd and Trinity College, London.