To streamline the process of admissions, management, class management, time table management, fee management, accounting, transport etc… implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an essential part to run the system proficiently. Bhawna Satsangi of Elets News Network (ENN) talks to industry experts to find out the opportunities and challenges in deploying ERP system

For any educational institution, who wants to run the system smoothly and add more students to their campus, it is essential to adopt technology. With growing expectations of improved performance, higher education leaders continue to think more creatively about how their people, processes and technology can work together more efficiently.

At a time when the students are technology- savvy, implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) will bring process efficiency across the organisation and reduce chances of errors. For an educational institute which performs multiple functions like management, admissions, fees management, class management, time table management, accounting, transport, library etc. it is necessary to bring in ERP technology to be more effective and accurate in their task.

Vendors of ERP believe that in order to make the system manageable and transparent, educational institutions must adopt ERP in their system. It is a complete integrated solution which has been designed to cover the in depth functionalities of any educational institute. It is also important to take the time and spend the money to educate everyone about the usage of the system and provide training to people who will operate the system.

The technology is about leveraging the benefits by the people who are using it. The educational institutes today need a mechanism that can streamline their work in more efficient manner. Students no longer are hooked on to one course or engaging once with an educational institute. As the student life-cycle increases, it becomes important to have a system that allows for managing the student-institute relationship for its entire duration of study.

Challenges

Despite promises for improved organisation and more effective management, there are number of challenges and a high failure rate in the implementation of technology. The implementation of ERP system involves high degree of complexity. The reason to the failure of the technology can be many including no interest among employees/users to learn using new technology, strategic goals are not defined, project team is not selected from the experienced employees, accuracy of data is not assured, system efficiency measures do not allow for successful changes, technical issues etc.

An educational institute should look into issues including multitude of legacy systems, training of existing staff and internal IT resources before deploying ERP solutions

The success of the technology depends upon varied factors as it embraces operations of an institute. Participation of management, participation of students, encouraging attitude among the employees, possibility to connect the integral information solutions with other business information systems, cooperation between advisers and employees are of key importance for any technology to flourish in a set up.

The other key pain areas an educational institute should look into before deploying ERP is multitude of legacy systems, training of existing staff and internal IT resources which are the top problems. “It is very hard to move away from a system that has been used for many years-especially if the stakeholders are invested in it emotionally. Also, getting the new system implemented without having significant internal bandwidth for technology would impede the speed of implementation,” says Shreekala Kurup, COO, Crack Verbal.

Benefits

Use of ERP solutions is essential in a system where different users with varied roles and responsibilities have to streamline their workflow. Students, management, teachers, principal, staff, parents, alumni all the data is managed under one platform in a time sensitive manner along with the rules and policies. The success of the technology depends upon factors such as participation of the management, the modernization of existing business processes, possibility to connect the integral information solutions with other business information systems, cooperation between advisers and employees and educated staff to tackle the issues of ERP system at ease.

“ERP solutions would make it easy for an educational institute to scale up and spend less time, money, and energy managing resources. A major chunk of bandwidth goes into processes that are offline, such as the providing of forms etc. All of this, if automated properly, would provide a seamless end-toend experience for the student,” informs Kurup.

“The important trend that we are seeing and catering to is primarily on the fact that anybody can create content and anybody can conduct content. So, both the creation and conduction of contact is actually going away from the standard methods of how we have done it in the past to something that anybody has been able to create. So, our learning system caters to that. Even beyond that what is happening we have capabilities integrating with the sub-standard platforms like Coursera, learner.com etc. and corporate have started using these more and more in terms of partnership,” informs Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Vice President-Product Management, SAP Labs.

Learning is very popular for SAP modules and there is large number of customers worldwide using SAP ERP solutions. From a trending perspective, skill development is getting linked to learning. The integration points are needed to be tighter now. Digital learning is probably going to the way to go online learning. MOOCs being the most prominent of how knowledge is going to be disseminated. “Today we have a knowledge economy where learning is all over the place. It is not just in the classrooms. Specialized learning skills that people are starting to develop, the need for industry are starting to move towards it.”

openSAP is SAP’s innovative learning platform and a thought leader for Enterprise MOOCs, focusing on key SAP technology & business innovations. openSAP offers maximum learning flexibility with compelling MOOC format and provides an engaging and effective learning experience through gamification and by connecting with fellow students and SAP experts.

“Our objective is to offer huge number of courses to the learners. We are running initiatives with Universities. We believe that there is knowledge among the student community and we have a crowd sourcing platform called SAPmile and we are working with six colleges in terms of crowd sourcing, problem statement that we actually want the students to work on. We want to have crowd sourcing platform that allows students to participate in initiatives in terms of execution of certain ideas,” informs Srikanth.

“An institute offering a course at a K12 level and at a graduate- level might avoid duplicating the process. Also, with various other systems going on the cloud, it is very easy to have each part of an ERP linked to other services using webhooks,” adds Kurup.

Adoption

To understand the process of ERP adoption, it is also essential to understand the ERP life cycle framework or process models. According to the study by Ehie and Madsen suggested five stage implementation process of ERP namely project preparation, business blueprint, realization, final preparation, Go live and support.

Despite being one of the best technologies to be adopted in the education sector to improve the working of the sector, yet the adoption seems to be minimal due to high costs involved in the implementation process.

“I think one of the biggest deterrents for adopting of an ERP solution has been that until now, systems were heavy and depended a lot on customization. Now with SAAS offerings and integration with other systems, the implementation times can be reduced to merely a few weeks. So in the coming years, more and more institutes will be adopting a robust ERP system,” feels Kurup.

In a bid to fulfil market requirement, the company intends to design and develop innovative products in video electronics that are tailor-made for the requirements of the India market, says Trushal Alshi, Founder and Managing Director, Willswell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

What were the various reasons behind starting Willswell Technologies?

Our team has strong technical background in video electronics.There is much space out there for consumer and commercial video electronics in India. We observed that most of the video electronics hardware is being imported to India, and in most of the cases, the importers (mostly traders) do not have control on quality and technical support for the products. The established brands for products, like projectors, also import the finished products. So overall there is limited scope for innovations as the products are not developed, designed in India. They are not tailor-made for the requirements of the Indian market. Our company intends to design and develop innovative products in video electronics like DLP led projectors with interactive function and multi-OS projectors. We also intend to carry out research and development in embedded systems for real-time scientific learning.

Tell us about the various difficulties and hurdles that are encountered in doing business at the ground level?

Being an Indian start-up company in hardware, our brand value was not considered up to the mark. Also, hardware products’ company is very capital intensive, unlike software products and services companies. Initially, for a long time we had to carry out market research extensively. Products had to be evaluated and tested rigorously before promoting and selling them full fledge.

The existing international brands projectors (certain models) fall in 25,000-30,000 thousand price range. These projectors have many drawback compared to our WXGA resolution DLP LED projectors.

Despite the fact that our projectors have many advantages like long lamp life, portability, low power consumption and very little or no maintenance, the high prices of our projectors in comparison to established international models makes it difficult for us to pitch in our projectors.

Our portable interactive kits (PIWB) are a low cost alternative to traditional bulky ‘with frame’ smart boards. However, there is very low level of awareness about the overall concept.

What is the market size of the products offered by you in India at present?

The present products like projectors have a market value as high as `600 crore. Our other product, the portable interactive whiteboard kit, is a first of its kind in India. The market size we expect for such a product is around `10 crore in the first year and depends on the increase in awareness about the product.

What are the major benefits for organisations and individuals adopting your solutions?

Our strong technical background in audio video electronics enables us to understand the technical requirements of our clients at a deeper level.This enables us to suggest and provide end to end solutions to them. Our clients can trust us for quality and post-sales support.

One example is our portable interactive kit. Using this product, existing projector installations can be converted to interactive smart touch board using stylus like e-pen. Any chalk board, whiteboard or plain wall can be converted into interactive board. This option not only saves space in classrooms, meetings rooms, but also provides portability feature. The product has all the features that a conventional smart board provides but at the same time is offered at less than half of the cost of the framed smart boards.The products can also be afforded by students who have projectors available with them.

What is the vision of your company for the next two years?

We intend to become a reputed brand in education and consumer video electronics and will be known for our excellent quality and best technical support.We will be having more variety of innovative products in interactive and video projection domain.

Digital marketing, dominant online presence and professional networking are few of the important measures that we are engaging in to increase the visibility. Roadshows, exhibitions are also important for us

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

Digital marketing, dominant online presence and professional networking are few of the important measures that we are engaging in to increase the visibility. Roadshows, exhibitions are also important for us.

How do you differentiate your services from competitors?

Very strong technical expertise is our major asset. Openness to new ideas of learning and constant drive for innovation is what will enable us to provide a better experience to our clients as compared to our competitors.

What are the measures adopted by you to engage customers. Please share a special case study?

Initial engagements with clients have been a wonderful experience. Our products are very innovative and not many target clients knew about the concept of converting whiteboards into interactive touch screen. We had to carry out several rounds of meetings and demonstrations for the initial clients. These happy clients are now recommending our products to potential clients.

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focussing on?

Our focus is on education, corporate and consumer electronics domains. We are also promoting good quality DLP LED projectors as replacement to TV so market is not limited to Education and Corporate.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

We are paying a lot of attention to the quality of our products. Post sales technical support and periodic upgradation of products to next better level experience is definitely going to help us in the long run. Fruitful long term association with existing client base will also help us emerge as leaders in the market.

Pramod Ponnaluri, Co-Founder, Kitki started his venture in 2013 with a vision to offer experiential learning modules to aid kids experience the beauty of learning through hands-on workshops and field visits. Today, the company develops board games based on geometry, chemistry and history that drive learning in an effective manner

What were the various reasons behind starting Kitki?

I never even thought I would become an entrepreneur. I was part of a fairly standard rat race – do well in school, graduate from a good college (BITS-Pilani), get a well-paying corporate job and climb the hierarchy ladder. It was only after 6 years of corporate experience that I started thinking more freely and realised how I ended up doing a lot of stuff only because someone said so or because that was the trend. Life is short. Why should anyone do what they don’t love. But there is not enough encouragement for kids to dig deep and find what really interests them. Learning new things certainly helps but unfortunately rote learning has taken precedence over true learning. That is where the root of the problem lies and instead of blaming the system, we decided to find a solution and thus started Kitki.

What are the various difficulties encountered in doing business on ground level?

Kitki was started in 2013 with a plan to partner with schools and offer experiential learning modules that can help kids experience the true beauty of learning through hands-on workshops and field visits. What we didn’t realise early enough was that schools take time to make such big changes and we struggled for over one year trying to convince schools to take our modules more seriously. After several pilot programmes at different types of schools, we knew that we could not sustain ourselves with that model. However, during this period we noticed how well game-like mechanics could engage kids and create an interest to learn among them. We took the hint and started developing board games that are a lot of fun but at the same time drive learning in an effective manner.

What is the market size of the services offered by you in India at present?

While the overall toys industry could be around `10,000 crore, we think educational games are about 20-25 per cent of the board games market in India. But our scope includes an additional segment of schools and further, our board games can cater to an international market.

What are the major benefits for organisations adopting your solutions?

Our games are just like any board game. But at the same time, the games are set in an educational context and subtly enough for kids to learn. Kids (and even adults) can purchase these from toy stores and online stores and have fun at home, at parties, at picnics, anywhere. Even schools are interested in adding these to their classrooms to enhance the learning experience.

What is the vision of your company for next two years?

We have already designed three board games that are based on concepts from geometry, chemistry and history. We are looking to build a portfolio of similar high quality board games over the next few years and let kids experience how fascinating learning really is and to develop a curiosity to learn them.

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

Apart from the traditional options of selling through toy stores and online stores, we are looking at spreading the word through workshops and stalls at offices and residential townships.In-stead of focusing on a one time sale, we are looking to build a strong relationship with our potential customers.

While the overall toys industry could be around `10,000 crore, we think educational games are about 20- 25 per cent of the board games market in India. But our scope includes an additional segment of schools and further, our board games can cater to an international market

How can you differentiate your services from competitors?

Game-based learning in India doesn’t have enough competitors yet. Many of those who are in the space are looking focused on only digital learning. Our physical format board games and the high quality detail in both the concepts and the graphic work differentiate Kitki.

What are the ways of engaging the customers with you?

Can you share a case study? Our board games give us the opportunity of developing different variations of a similar subject. For example, our game on history is based on medieval Indian history and specifically highlights the rise of the Delhi Sultanate. The next version will be on how the Delhi Sultanate’s strength grew into the Central India. We plan to stay alongside a child’s learning experience through new games at different stages.

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focusing on?

As of now we are focusing only on game-based learning products through board games. We may enter the digital space as well, once we understand our customers better.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

We value customer relationships a lot more than absolute sales. We plan to just be honest, let our customers know about our aim and let them be a big part of the revolution. We recently ended one such campaign through which we asked people to help us raise enough funds to manufacture our game on geometry, Three Sticks. The campaign was launched on an international platform called Indiegogo and we received a tremendous response. People pre-ordered the game from all over the world, including teachers and education experts and helped us raise over $11,000! We will continue to work towards building better relationships and not worry about our sales or our market share.

With a vision to provide an academic networking platform, and enrich the user experience, EduLanche is scaling up to become the world’s largest academic network serving students, teachers, publishers, institutions and recruiters from around the globe, says Dr Nishanth B Singh, CEO, EduLanche

What prompted you to start EduLanche?

I completed medical school training successfully in 2012 at Government Medical College, Thrissur followed by a year of rural healthcare in India during 2013-14. Curiosity in e-learning led to development of free knowledge sharing website, www.lifehugger. com during medical school days. The intuitive idea of developing a network for academics, led to the launch of EduLanche Academic Network in 2014. Personally, I funded the initial phase of the project with funds received from publications.

What are the various difficulties encountered in doing business on ground level?

We believe it is important to anticipate and avoid hurdles as much as possible and have the conviction to face difficulties that may emerge in the course of the business.

What is the market size of the services offered by you in India at present?

EduLanche Academic Network has a global potential proven by the user base expanding in India and abroad. The market opportunity is substantial at $300 billion. India’s online education alone is predicted to reach $110 billion by 2015.

What are the major benefits for organisations adopting your solutions?

EduLanche offers an exclusive platform for academic networking. E-learning, e-commerce, recruitment solutions and advertising have been enabled to enrich the user experience. On EduLanche, students can seamlessly connect with teachers, academic institutions, recruiters and vice-versa.

What is the vision of your company for next two years?

EduLanche is scaling up to become the world’s largest academic network serving students, teachers, publishers, institutions and recruiters from around the globe in five years from now.

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

EduLanche mostly depends on word of mouth publicity among students to inform teachers and institutions about the benefits of EduLanche Academic Network Online and direct marketing is being utilized.

How you can differentiate your services from competitors?

EduLanche is most awarded educational startup and has won five major awards within six months of launch for being the first to have integrated learning, networking and careers on a single platform.

Taking educational techniques to a next level through its easy and fun learning tools, Next Education shall give a tough edge to education solutions

Pledge to creating brighter future of students, Next Education empowers schools with technology-based K-12 solutions that are used by over 1,50,000 teachers and impacts 7,000,000 students across 7,000 schools.

To make learning and teaching easier, more fun, and more effective, Next Education has developed 10,000 learning modules that account for more than 1,000 hours of classroom teaching at school and junior college levels. The modules have been designed using contemporary learning design principles and undergone testing on and off the field. The company’s products are learner centric and make teaching easier and more effective for teachers.

The learning solutions cover the syllabi of CBSE, ICSE, Army and all State Boards and cover seven Indian languages. From Leh to Kanyakumari, Next Education service network is spread across the country. With its on-site service support, teacher training, and advisory services, Next Education is transforming the face of school education in India.

The Next learning architectural is an experiential education model designed as a blend of extensive research by the team of educators within the Indian market segment and contemporary international learning design principles. The products designed cater to both the teacher and the student. The teacher becomes a facilitator for the student’s journey in exploring each new concept. And during the journey the student is encouraged to collaborate with other students and together build new cognitive models of the concept being taught.

Next Education provides end-to-end service in education sector: Set up and Implementation

The dedicated team of technicians and trainers ensure a smooth set up and an effective implementation of the solution.

e-Learning Support Engineer/ Technical Support Engineer

The company has more than 400 personnel across the length and breadth of the country and ensures that they attend the clients’ problems within a week.

Customer Helpline

The customer helpline makes sure that every customer’s voice is heard and acted upon.

Regular Teacher Training

A product implementation is successful only if the customer uses it effectively. Our regular teacher training programmes ensure that schools are abreast with the latest features and additions in our products and continue using the solution effectively.

Exhaustive Upgrades

The company aims to build a relationship and not just a transaction. Our development team constantly upgrades our products with the latest in syllabi and teaching methodologies.

Products and Solutions

Teach Next: An interactive e-learning solution combining the best of new-age technology, creative and interactive tools.

Next Books: An award-winning and engaging series of comprehensive curriculum books for pre-primary and primary schools.

Next Deeksha: Training, accreditation services, and consultancy solutions for schools by experienced and dedicated in house educators.

Next Lab: An experiential learning approach for schools enabling students to use hands-on activities to understand English, Maths, Science and Robotics better.

Learn Next: An independent, engaging and intelligent platform which fosters self-learning, and helps students grasp complex topics easily.

Next ERP: An integrated school management system which streamlines all processes, departments and functions of a school.

Next Gurukul: An online K-12 community which facilitates collaboration among students, teachers, parents and principals. Next Learning Platform: An adaptive technology solution to provide teachers and students a platform to envision, explore and create individualised learning materials.

The vision of Impartus is to aid students with the video technologies while providing some innovative solutions in learning. The Lecture capture technology enables students to virtually re-wind their classroom experience on an anytime, anywhere basis

Founded in 2011 by a group of IIT and IIM alumnus, Impartus has developed products for the education sector. Having been one of the ed-tech companies, Impartus provide video solutions for teaching learning enhancement and taking learning beyond classrooms.

With a team of more than 20 professionals across various organisational functions, the team is dedicated to bring innovations in the video solutions for the effective, fun learning for students and teachers.

The comprehensive solution has “lecture capture technology” (automatic video recording of live classroom lectures) as its core feature. The access to recorded lectures and other study material through Impartus enables students to virtually re-live their classroom experience on anytime anywhere basis. It also assists the teacher in self-improvement.

Impartus is an amalgamation of hardware and software which is provided as a turnkey solution to its customers. The end-user apps are available for all popular devices (laptops, tablets, mobiles) and platforms (Android, iOS, Windows). It is available in both cloud as well as onpremise installation and has robust Live Streaming functionality.

The recorded videos are not just raw videos, they are fitted with numerous tools, making them interactive and engaging. The recordings are done intelligently in multi-view mode (teacher, student, blackboard and presentation).

Interactive features include: Searchable Videos

The captured videos can be tagged by teachers and students alike. Also, the system auto-tags the lecture using intelligent algorithms. This makes the video searchable and discoverable. The student can search by a keyword and all the videos and other content related to that keyword appear on the user screen.

Tap-To-Toggle

The captured lectures are available in multiple views. To simulate the real classroom environment we have left it on the user’s choice to select the view he wants to view. The user can switch from one view to another just by clicking and tapping on the screen.

Video Bookmarks

While viewing a lecture, the user can mark a segment and keep it as separate bookmark for future reference. All this can be done with few button clicks and the user can also create a playlist of such bookmarks.

Notes

The user can create notes on the recorded videos which can be shared among fellow students as well. The lecturer can also choose to create a note at some point during the lecture and share it to all the students. This feature can be used to provide the students with some extra information after the lecture.

Hand-Raiser

Many a times, students have doubts when they are reviewing the lecture. The system facilitates the student with the ability to ask questions whenever she wants. These questions are then pushed onto the teacher’s working space. The teacher will have an option to either revert back on the platform itself with the answer or he may choose to discuss the same in the next scheduled lecture.

Post Editing

Post-editing is an optional feature in this system. If enabled, all the recorded videos can be edited manually by the teacher to remove unwanted content post lecture. The lectures are distributed to students only after the lecturer confirms that the editing has been completed.

Impartus is working on global innovations in the field of lecture capture, flipped classroom, and video intelligence. It has built a formidable education technology team pan India and abroad and has offices in Bangalore, Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Kenya. Its e-learning channel partner is Pearson India and financial investor is Kaizen Private Equity.

The paradigms of learning are changing rapidly. As the world is becoming digital, students are fast embracing technology into their personal lives, therefore, necessitating interactive learning environments in education too

The concepts of learning are rapidly changing. With every component tuning into digital mode, the students are imbibing technological advancement into their personal space. This change has seeped in the need to have an interactive learning environments in learning as well. The growing demands of the educational institutes are immense, ranging from infrastructure upgradation and technological adoption to staffing issues and providing engaging learning experiences. Having a vast experience in IT services, Ricoh is able to address the concerns of the stakeholders to a great extent.

To aid institutions with a better result, Ricoh provides customized solutions for the educational institutions, be it schools or those of higher learning. The solutions help optimize and reduce cost to maximize return on investment. It also offers security for institution administrative work like student data and other sensitive information.

The futuristic vision helps in reducing the chances of technology and multimedia content becoming obsolete. Ricoh solutions help in enhancing the productivity of both the faculty and the institute. The company provides end-to-end business solution for every department like computer center, printing center, classrooms, and institutional buildings.

Some of the other offerings by Ricoh are:

• ClassTech- an interactive learning solution for schools
• Document and print management services- These are designed to meet the academic and administrative requirements of K-12 and higher education institutes
• Visual Communication solutions- Enables collaborative and interactive learning in classrooms, thus, not only enriching the learning experience for students but also enhancing retention and making the entire process more productive for the students and teachers
• IT Products & Services- Ricoh has the technical expertise and resources to build while own and operate large scale ICT projects for educational institutes. The company has partnered with global leaders to provide the best in class offerings across diverse applications.

Ricoh specializing in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems and IT services has a distinct focus to cater to the growing demands of the education sector.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in about 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ending March 2015, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,231 billion yen (approx. 18.5 billion USD) and operates in about 200 countries and regions.

What sets us apart is that we deliver not only a wide array of products, but consistent service levels across the globe, with a single point of contact and central coordination. In India, Ricoh operates through a robust network of 24 offices, and over 2500 dealers and business associates spread across the country.

We are known for the quality of our technology, the exceptional standard of our customer service and our sustainability initiatives. Ricoh India Limited has been an ISO certified organisation since 1994, and is currently certified under ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 27001:2005 standards. The company also holds CMMI Level 4 certification.

Under its corporate tagline, imagine. change., Ricoh helps companies transform the way they work and harness the collective imagination of their employees.

Working on the model of one-to-two education and providing an online tutoring platform for children, Vedantu is a breather for many students, who can also prepare for competitive exams with the teachers online in due course of time

Passionately driven with a thought that education needs to be more personalised, four childhood friends Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena and Anand Prakash, after graduating from IIT, decided to bring a positive change in this sector and conceptualized Vedantu (www.vedantu.com) in 2014. The name Vedantu is influenced by Sanskrit words Veda (Knowledge) + Tantu (Network), signifying a ‘Knowledge Network.’

A live online tutoring platform, Vedantu aims to personalise and democratise learning with primary focus on 6th to 10th tuition sector in CBSE & ICSE curriculum. Students also have an option to prepare for tougher competitive exams like NTSE, PSA etc. or simply get their doubts cleared anytime, anywhere. The company spot and create quality teachers and ensure the quality education spreads without boundaries. Vedantu has completely re-imagined 1-to-1 teaching learning and created in-house WAVE technology (Whiteboard, Audio and Video Environment). It makes online learning a pleasure and enables teaching sessions even at a low bandwidth.

A first of its kind ‘Marketplace for Teachers’ model, which has already been proven in other countries, Vedantu is on a mission to make it a game changer in India too. Here a student/parent can come and browse through a list of teachers based on ratings/reviews, communicate with them (chat/talk), choose a teacher and learn Live online with him/her. No other platform in India gives this end-toend integrated experience.

This model addresses the basic problem of generalization and one-size-fits-all in education today. Vedantu is the only initiative in the EdTech space that uses data analytics and algorithms to connect the most relevant teachers to the students as per their requirements and monitors the sessions. This is the most unbiased educational practice. We have so far catered to over 19K students and have successfully conducted over 10k hours of learning sessions.

Vedantu offers services for students throughout India and in some special cases students abroad. The company is currently focusing on tier 1 cities like Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi, but it is getting traction from over 92 cities already. Vedantu has recently raised $5million in a Series A round of funding from Accel Partners and Tiger Global Management.

The first venture by these friends in education, Lakshya, was founded in 2006 which later got acquired by a listed company called MT Educare (Mahesh Tutorials) in 2012. As part of Lakshya the founders taught and mentored more than 10,000 students and trained more than 200 teachers.

Key Differentiators

Generalisation – Vedantu is solving the basic issue of one size fits all mentality in education today. Apart from 1-to-1 learning, the company realized that best learning happens when a teacher sits with a student to discuss and teach him/her on a notebook shared between them. The shared Whiteboard on Vedantu replicates this for student and teacher sitting thousands of kilometers away.

Passionate Teachers–

Vedantu is inducting and creating a pool of high quality teachers/mentors who really love what they do and who are ‘Teachers by Choice’. In the process, company is creating employment for Women/Housewives who previously had limitations in going out to teach.

Last mile problem – Making quality learning accessible anytime-anywhere with absolutely no boundaries. The new app for teachers, ‘Tapp’ connects them to students in no time. The content library is available at a click of a button. One can sort content, check documents, view videos, and attempt tests and assignments – all at one place. The company has integrated ‘Click to Call’ model.

The objective of VMukti is to bring transformation in the lives of the people through innovations in video communication technology. The firm strives for innovations in webcasting, live video streaming and surveillance especially in the education sector

VMukti stands as one of the pioneer forces when it comes to Cloud based video streaming, surveillance and meeting. Constant focus on research and development since inception with the highest qualified and skilled talent in this industry has created a brand from a company called VMukti. The company provides expertise in balanced, cost effective delivery of live streaming and webcasting media across multiple platforms throughout the world. VMukti is thoroughly committed to provide reliable and quality services with unique fail-safe streaming solutions viz. cloud based video surveillance, webcam surveillance and meeting.

The company’s easy to manage portal, streaming knowledge base and skilled technical support team have made sure that VMukti provides services and products par excellence.

Through the unique global network of unfailing distribution servers, VMukti ensure the delivery of the highest quality content with high speed and performance regardless of the audience size and geographic location of the end user. The webinar software developed by experts is a quintessential example of the live event webcasting needs of the businesses worldwide.

VMukti Solutions Pvt. Ltd. and its interactive live video streaming solutions are certified by Intel and have bagged numerous awards from reputed international organisations like NASSCOM, Red Herring & ISBA.

The firm has 80 per cent of market share in India. The objective of VMukti is to bring out transformation in the lives of people through innovation in video communication technology. The company is a provider of monitoring and surveillance services in various verticals like education, media, government institutions, insurance, retail, finance, and banking and finance.

Purple Squirrel Eduventures collaborates with colleges across the country as Knowledge Partners to design programmes that align with curriculum and evolving industry expectations

Purple Squirrel Eduventures believes the world’s largest youth population needs industry-driven experiential learning to shape its future. The Mumbaibased, SINE IIT-Bombay incubated startup designs industry exposure programmes that combine industry visits, workshops and projects for students across streams.

Founded in September 2013, Purple Squirrel has already partnered with more than 450 companies and worked with 10,000 students across 80 colleges in 12 cities. It was funded by India Quotient in August 2014 and Matrix Partners India in April 2015.

Programmes

Eduventures

For a student, an industry visit is their first real encounter with the professional world, and it is likely to leave a lasting impact. PSQ’s Eduventures are curriculum-mapped industry visits designed to help students understand their career options better. Our Eduventures combine learning modules industry visits, skill development workshops, projects and unique local experiences – that can be customised for students. Colleges can choose from eight industry hubs across the country.

Live Projects

Students work on live projects with companies across sectors. While projects train students, they also help companies shortlist talent and nurture employees into mentorship roles.

Skill-development Workshops

Workshops impart field-specific skills that focus on hands-on training, making students more employable. The workshop format is flexible – ranging from half a day to three days.

ODIs

A first-of-its-kind initiative, One-Day Industry Visits directly connect students to companies and workshops in their city. Spanning 20 cities across the country, ODIs introduce students to world outside of their classrooms.

Designed for you

Our programmes cover all education streams

Media students can spend time learning the ropes at various media companies such as advertising agencies, production houses and PR firms. They can learn and improve on skills such as photography, video editing and copy writing. We tie up with companies such as Ogilvy, NDTV, Radio Mirchi etc to design our programmes.

B-school students and commerce students can explore various facets of management like finance, marketing, human resources and operations. Attending workshops and seminars at some of the biggest management firms in the country is definitely an experience to remember. We work with companies across sectors such as Amul, Just Dial, Coca Cola and Nielsen.

Engineering Eduventures span a wide range of interest areas, ranging from manufacturing to infrastructure and information technology to research. The programme also pays special attention to tech-oriented startups as they are the future. Our tie-ups feature companies such as P&G, UB Group, Siemens and Hyundai.

Entrepreneurship culture is highlighted with students getting a chance to visit in India’s most promising startups such as Myntra and Zomato. Students are also introduced to the social sector through NGOs such as CRY and Akanksha.

The PSQ Impact

Based on post-Eduventure feedback, 80.5% of the students said they had more clarity on their career options. Also, 55% of our partner companies are willing to offer internships and projects to our students.