Why e-learning platform ?

Educomp Solutions Ltd, India’s largest education company and pioneer of digital education in the country has today announced the launch of a new first-in-category product called SmartclassOnline.

Designed for the next generation of school students, SmartclassOnline combines the power of the internet with social collaboration and smart phone mobility in a format that allows students seamless access to course material, sharing and performance evaluation.

This pioneering eLearning solution is built around the theme of ‘Learn, Share and Perform’ and is accessible anywhere and anytime by students, teachers and parents.

Educomp has partnered with KV Intelliprop to develop the platform for SmartclassOnline. SmartclassOnline is powered by the vast repository of Educomp group’s proprietary digital instruction materials. It enables peer to peer collaboration, parent-teacher interaction, and group to group communication and it includes features for management of student’s performance. Students can access content, teachers can upload assignments for students to download, and parents can access important information about their wards on demand.

Shantanu Prakash, Chairman and Managing Director, Educomp Solutions Ltd, said, “We are very excited to launch SmartclassOnline. Our education system is being revolutionized by the Internet, online social collaboration and increasing availability of smart and mobile devices. This is another pioneering move by Educomp that marks the transition of the education system from the digital age to Internet Age.”

SmartclassOnline allows safe and secure online collaboration through messages, SMS, email, photo galleries, shared events, groups and announcements. Managing performance data is made simpler through features such as assignments, attendance, health status records, marks entry and CCE compliant report card generation.

The curriculum reach extends from kindergarten to grade 12, covering subjects such as Mathematics, Science, English, EVS, Social Studies, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, Economics, Accountancy and Business Studies.

Its key features include providing a host of learning solutions that includes rich media digital learning materials such as video tutorials and assessments to help students comprehend and internalize abstract learning concepts. The entire school community can now be connected as one large network with SmartclassOnline. To help new users, SmartclassOnline also has a feedback mechanism to address queries.

Educomp works closely with schools to develop innovative models to create and deliver content to enhance student learning.

“This is the first time such a module is being introduced in India,” said Gaurav Bhatnagar, Senior Vice-President, Educomp Solutions Ltd. “SmartclassOnline brings together the power of learning, sharing and performing online, all in one revolutionary product. For a promotional period, we are offering this free of cost. We invite students, teachers and parents to experience education in the Internet Age with SmartclassOnline today,” he added.

SmartclassOnline will be available in 2 categories for school viz. a starter pack with collaboration & sharing features and a full pack with collaboration, sharing, learning, performance and administrative features. The SmartclassOnline starter pack has been made available for free for a limited period.

Smartclass Online also works as a supplementary tool for students who are enrolled with schools that do not have access to digital learning or have Smartclass installed in their schools.

SmartclassOnline is open for all - even for open school students. A student has to just register online and start learning. This also increases Educomp’s reach to students exponentially beyond those who are benefitting from their school programs.

To begin with Educomp aims to target the 5 million students it is already engaged with through its Smartclass progam in schools. Over the next one year, the company is targeting bringing 1 million students on its SmartclassOnline platform.

Educomp also unveiled a new advertising campaign today. The campaign titled “There is another way' will break for public tomorrow.

Facts about Educomp Solution's Founder

The Chairman and Managing Director of Educomp Solutions Limited, Shantanu Prakash had this lofty thought at a time when children in schools were still taught in the same way as they had been a 100 years back, and “education was a field where qualitative advancement had been the slowest.”

Shantanu Prakash, Chairman and Managing Director, Educomp Solutions, India; Global Agenda Council on Emerging Multinationals at the World Economic Forum on India 2012. Copyright World Economic Forum / Photo by Benedikt von Loebell

A first generation entrepreneur, Prakash soon translated the thought into a loftier vision and then a reality when he founded Educomp in 1994, a few years after graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, making it the first company to provide technology-enabled education in India.

While the success of Shantanu Prakash with Educomp Solutions is a known story, we bring you ten facts about the ed-tech entrepreneur that are as astounding as the man’s journey in India’s education sector.

Take a look:

1. Shantanu Prakash faced struggle right from his childhood
The difficulties faced by refugee families in giving their children a normal upbringing are like the proverbial elephant in the room – everyone knows it’s there, but no one wants to acknowledge its presence.

Hailing from a refugee family himself, Shantanu Prakash had to struggle a lot right from his childhood. He opened up about his experience as a refugee in his speech at TEDxZaventem, where he acknowledged the need to aid refugee entrepreneurs in their business endeavors.

2. His first stint was a home-grown events management company
After schooling from Delhi Public School (Mathura Road), Shantanu Prakash pursued B.Com. from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. During this time, he started an events management company along with a friend. They made about Rs 4-5 lakh in the 80s, before Prakash left the company to join IIM-Ahmedabad.

3. Educomp was started with borrowed money
After completing education from a top-notch educational institution like Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), Shantanu Prakash joined an SRCC colleague in the education-aids business, much to his father’s dismay.

In 1994, upon knowing that the CBSE has introduced computers as a part of curriculum, Shantanu Prakash left his friend, borrowed money at high rates and started buying computers to install in schools. The growth of Educomp Solutions was slow but steady and profitable. “This is where I learnt the most valuable lesson in business — sell to consumers who can get others to pay!” says Shantanu Prakash.

4. Apart from Educomp Solutions, Shantanu Prakash is also the founder of RVentures Foundation
RVentures Foundation a non-profit organization that works towards promoting the integration of refugees in the host country by imparting them education and aiding their entrepreneurial ventures. Prakash conceived the idea during his speech about refugee entrepreneurship at TEDxZaventem.

“Refugees have mostly been singled out in terms of help leaving them at bottom of the labor market. We believe that refugees are fundamentally entrepreneurs because of the struggle and the challenges that they have faced in their lives. Not only do they have amazing characteristics of risk-taking, resilience, flexibility, creativity, but also the ability to start from zero – all highly prized entrepreneurial qualities,” reads the RVentures official website.

5. Shantanu Prakash is a proud recipient of several awards
The Educomp founder’s contribution to the development of the Indian education sector has been acknowledged and lauded by several known names in the industry.
He is a proud recipient of the Ernst & Young ‘Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2008.
The ET Now’s ‘Leap of Faith’ Award in the category of Education for year 2010, Dataquest ‘Pathbreaker of the Year 2010’.
 The ‘Shiksha Ratna Award of the Decade’, the ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ at Indian Education Awards 2011.

The ‘Dare Entrepreneur Award’ in 2011.
6. Belief in Intellectual Capital
A BBC report stated that Shantanu Prakash chose a business model with a “high amount of intellectual capital and [little] financial capital”, requiring only about $1,000 to get started. This in itself is a great inspiration for youngsters out there who are worried about the lack of huge capital funding.

7. His venture Educomp Solutions has also received numerous accolades
The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Just like Shantanu Prakash has soared to great heights and received several awards of excellence, his brainchild Educomp Solutions, too, has received great praise. Educomp Solutions was named the company of the year in the ICT & ITES sector at the CNBC-ICICI bank Emerging India awards from over 5,000 enterprises in 2005. It was also chosen as ‘Future Titan’, one of the 10 hottest companies in India by Outlook Business magazine in November 2006. Educomp was also listed among the ‘200 Best under a Billion’ for the Asia-Pacific region by Forbes.

8. He runs a non-profit foundation for underprivileged school children
Shantanu Prakash Foundation (SPF), an initiative by the Educomp Solutions Chairman and Managing Director, collaborates and cooperates with identified initiatives in education that helps the underserved or deserving with limited means.

9. He turned his back on a career in investment banking
Shantanu Prakash was offered an attractive career in investment banking while he was in IIM. But Shantanu, who wanted to build something of his own, turned down the offer unlike most of his batch mates.

10. Conversation with Sadhguru
Spiritual leader Sadhguru spoke with Shantanu Prakash, CEO of Educomp Solutions, in a recent event in 2013. Prakash questioned Sadhguru on how education has shaped him, and his personal experience in education to which Sadhguru replied “My only sadhana has been to remain uneducated.”

Digital Education Trends : The future of young India

Keeping pace with students who are becoming more tech-savvy, schools in India are taking to the concept of digital classrooms — a new education technology that assists teachers with course-ware and maintenance support in digital format.

When Mrinalini Kaura, the principal of Venkateshwar International School (VIS) in Dwarka, New Delhi, heard of this concept, she did not think twice before digitising 45 classrooms. Barely a few months into revamping the classrooms, Kaura was so impressed with the results that she plans to implement it in the remaining 23 classes of her school.

Kaura says she sees digital classrooms as the way ahead for all schools because it makes both teaching and learning simple: Better assessment system, real-time paper evaluation and abstract concepts made easy to understand.

VIS is not the only success story with Educomp Solution’s smartclass in its classrooms. Several schools in Ludhiana – including Kundan Vidya Mandir, Satpaul School and BCM School – too, have caught up with the trend and are experimenting with technology to impart knowledge to up to class VIII students.

Educomp, till a few years ago, was the only player in the digital classroom segment, but today the market has over half-a-dozen players – like Everonn Education, EdServe Softsystem, Core Projects and Technologies, NIIT and Manipal K-12 Education – who have made learning easy through IT-enabled systems.

There’s no denying the fact that schools and educational institutions are waking up to the opportunity of IT-based solutions and service providers are reckoning its potential.

Chennai-based Everonn Education lists its growth plans for its iSchool. “This segment will see huge growth in the days to come. At present, we are in 1,370 schools. We plan to take that number to 5,000 schools over the next three years,” says P Kishore, founder and managing director of Everonn Education.

Educomp has 5,534 schools – including Delhi Public School and Bal Bharti in New Delhi – and 3.9 million students using its Smartclass solution.

The digital classroom services include: setting up of infrastructure and technology in schools; providing digitised course-ware and maintenance support to teachers; educating teachers and the management on technology usage and conduct special interactive sessions, sometimes through VSAT.

The market has evolved with the Central government’s move to fund Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan for ICT@Schools programme with a Rs 15 lakh per district per year budget. Under the government’s Technology in Education Initiative, out of a total 10,00,000 schools in the country, the programme will cover 6,42,600 schools at the primary, upper primary and secondary levels.

Every school will have a server, five PCs, printer and internet connectivity. State governments will outsource installation andmaintenance of hardware, content and training to a private party. The information and communication technology (ICT) business is tender-based. It functions under the build/own/operate/transfer model.

Many service providers are using the powerful channel of 3D animation videos to explain concepts like formation of block-mountains or volcanic formation. And, schools are using the available technology to explain and simplify concepts in subjects like Chemistry, Physics, History, Biology and Science. “The key is to make learning as interactive as possible,” says Kaura.

According to analysts, visually improved presentation through use of graphics increases students’ interests in classrooms. With more and more companies realising the potential, analysts expect the market to grow ten times in the next five years. ICT inflows to private-sector players is pegged at around Rs 4,500 crore by March 2012.

The service charges vary for each player. For instance, while Educomp charges between Rs 155 and Rs 160 per student per month (for an average class comprising 40 students), Everonn charges Rs 15,000 for one classroom.

Everonn, however, provides a 50 per cent subsidy if it caters to the needs of more than five classrooms in a school. Industry experts believe that by March 2013 around 200,000 public schools will be able to offer computer training to their students.

While Educomp did not divulge how much it spends on digitising an existing classroom, Everonn said renovating each classroom costs between Rs 60,000 and Rs 100,000.

Know more about Educomp shares.