Two ex-IITians, Ritesh Singh and Akshat Goel, have come up with a unique open-school communication and social learning platform that allows teachers, students and parents to interact freely and effectively on mobile phones.

Ritesh Singh and Akshat Goel wanted to provide innovative solutions for effective knowledge transfer in our ecosystem. They chose the name Eckovation for their startup, a portmanteau of ecosystem, knowledge and innovation. The app was founded in March 2014 and launched in June this year after more than a year long market research and study.

Briefing about the initiative, CEO Singh said, “We first explored MOOCs (massive open online courses) but they were cumbersome and required a lot of self-discipline on the users’ part. Next we thought about providing data analytics through an ERP system that monitors a child’s performance and equips teachers and parents with sufficient data to improve a child’s performance by finding gaps, weaknesses and strengths.”

“But looking at the size of a normal classroom, the actual implementation seemed extremely difficult and would have required greater efforts from the teachers instead of simplifying their lives. We also did a market study with 30,000 students across four cities across tiers to understand the gaps. Therein, we observed that parents are not in the loop, when it comes to classroom teaching,” he added.

Singh further said, “So we decided to build a product that brings together all actors of education – parents, students, teachers and school administration. Eckovation not only helps connect parents with teachers and students while safeguarding everyone’s privacy, it also connects students to teachers who are willing to transfer knowledge beyond their classrooms.”

The aim of education should be the building of character and not mere injecting of information, said President Pranab Mukherjee, while speaking at the 150th anniversary of Bishop Cotton Boys’ School in Bengaluru.

The President complimented the founders and management of the Bishop Cotton Boys’ School for its having successfully completed 150 years of service to the cause of education as well as to the Lord. “The School has carved out a niche for itself through its emphasis on quality. The aim of all education should be building of character and not merely injecting of information. Schools should instill in their students commitment to our core civilisational values such as love for motherland, belief in peaceful coexistence and acceptance of diversity. It should encourage rational thinking and inculcate a scientific temper,” he added.

The President congratulated the school for being ranked among the three best schools in the country and called upon school authorities, faculty, students and all other stakeholders to aspire to become one of the top three in the world.

New Delhi Tuesday, 15th December 2015

World’s leading sanitary fittings brand GROHE has chosen New Delhi based Interactive Bees as its partner to promote the ‘Masters of Technology’ through various online marketing campaigns. GROHE has a vivid collection of luxury sanitary products, created with finesse by excellent industry-leading German technology, which promises a completely new user experience. The brand values of GROHE constitute the locomotive force behind the punch-line, “Pure Freude an Wasser” (pure joy of water).

GROHE is targeting to expand its market share in the niche of luxury bathroom and kitchen fittings segment in a growing market like India. Interactive Bees, a company with deep expertise in holistic brand management and promotion through multitude of media platforms, will devise a comprehensive marketing strategy for the global leader in sanitary products and implement it to bring forth a robust fillip to the market penetration of GROHE.

Recent surveys in the bathroom and sanitary fitting industry has shown that with the rising concern for environment, the demand for water conserving technology is at a steep rise. Premium bathroom and sanitary fittings comprises of 10-12% of the total market share, a segment that forms the core target segment of GROHE.

Interactive Bees director, Monica Gupta reaffirmed her company’s commitment by asserting, “GROHE has provided us with an ample opportunity to substantiate our assertion of being a leader in complete brand communications. Our endeavour to innovate and deliver the best corporate branding solutions to our clients through an array of different platforms, helps us to position ourselves at the competitive edge to realise the Masters of Technology project of our Client.”

According to Ms. Gupta, utilising its domain expertise, Interactive Bees will work on all available digital media platforms, to position optimally the brand image of GROHE among the targeted segment in Indian market. The campaign execution will see Media Planning, Media Buying, strategy building, and implementation to expand the penetration of the brand.

For more information, please contact PR@interactivebees.com

Careers360, the education hub operated by Pathfinder Publishing Pvt Ltd, has acquired Delhi based Entrancecorner.com, in an all cash deal.

About the acquisition, Maheshwer Peri, Founder of Careers360 said, “Entrancecorner.com acquisition will help us expand our reach and deliver better value to all stakeholders. The need of the hour for all portals is to consolidate, expand audiences and increase yields. We are happy that with this acquisition, our total market reach would be 55 per cent of the higher education aspirants.”

“We have built huge audiences but we had to build a marketing strategy that will help us reach out to more clients and command better yields. Careers360.com in a short span has established itself for its credibility, reach and audiences. This partnership with Careers360.com will enable us to achieve our true potential,” said Shubham Watta, Co-Founder, Entrancecorner.com.

Entrancecorner.com was co-founded six years ago by Naveen Goyal, Shubham Watta and Ravinder Kaushik. The latest Google Analytics suggests that Entrancecorner.com gets three million sessions per month. After this acquisition, the entire 20 member team of Entrancecorner.com will operate under the new management.