Nexus of Good: EdTech for all

The EdTech industry has been booming since the past year. When we hear the term EdTech, the first image that comes to our mind is that of a private school student studying on a laptop from the comfort of their home or school. At its surface, this image is comforting as technology is enhancing the power of education but, when we look at the flip side of it, 10 crore students in India do not have access to basic digital education, let alone quality education.

In this profit-driven industry, there is an exceptional social enterprise that particularly caters to the students who need access to digital education. At a time when an EdTech product costs somewhere between Rs 20,000 to Rs two lakh annually, this enterprise is offering high-quality education free of cost.

Founded in 2014 by Jairaj Bhattacharya (an engineer and Young India Fellow) and Shashank Pandey (an engineer from IIIT Hyderabad), ConveGenius is a social-EdTech company trying to bridge the wide learning gap faced by 10 crore marginalised students studying in government and affordable private schools. Right from the beginning, they have made it their mission to reduce the disparity in Indian education and make it accessible to all students.

The vernacular platform has been designed keeping in mind the masses that cannot afford expensive EdTech products but deserve the same quality of education as anyone else. ConveGenius platform works seamlessly as it can be used in any smart device — from the low-cost smartphone to a laptop. A single device caters to multiple students. So, even if a household with five children has one smartphone, they will be able to study through EdTech under the guidance of a school teacher. The next best part is that they also use WhatsApp to provide remedial education, making it possible for students to use it with even 2G/3G internet services.

To date, over 1.8 crore students have registered on the platform, with 50 per cent of registered users using the platform every week. The platform is serving in more than 10 states in the country, including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh etc.

Since their target students study in government and affordable private schools, they majorly focus on remedial learning. The AI-based solution works in pursuance of nudge theory to motivate students to learn at their own pace. It also tracks their progress to help them achieve mastery in their foundational concepts.

Their weekly 'assessments for learning' have consistently received a completion rate of more than 98 per cent. The data from these assessments is shared with teachers who use it to improve learning by focusing on the weaknesses of individual students and misconceptions of the class as a whole.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we heard inspiring stories of how teachers were coping with the situation and learning new methods of teaching. Their dilemma, however, increased as the students lacked resources. With the ConveGenius EdTech platform, the majority of students could now connect with their teachers through their devices and, for those who could not, teachers offered their own smartphones. Moving from offline learning to online learning was surely tough, but it was made fun and engaging by leveraging the widely used messaging platform of WhatsApp.

ConveGenius' original model was B2B where they empowered schools and state governments to deploy their EdTech platform. But as the pandemic hit, the schools were shut down. To combat this challenge, ConveGenius came up with a chat-based teaching and learning platform. The other major challenge was to figure out a way to reach the last mile child. Since the focus was on students in tier-three cities and rural areas, most of the parents were not educated enough to realise the value of digital education. The ones who were aware could not afford to pay. This happened when many state governments and local partners stepped in and acted as a bridge between ConveGenius and the students.

To provide each child with a personalised and adaptive learning experience, ConveGenius integrated unique student IDs to enable a one-click experience without the need for a high-end application. ConveGenius also acquired Gray Matters India and is moving to build this on an interoperable architecture for learning growth. Thus, with quick adaptation and with the power of collaboration, as of today, 1.8 crore students are receiving a fair chance at learning.

The story does not end here. A large-scale impact is not possible without bringing the community together. ConveGenius alone could not reach 10 crore students. So, they launched their nationwide campaign named #EdTechForNayaBharat (ETNB Mission) – a platform for like-minded people in the field of education to share resources and knowledge to move towards this bold mission, together.

The pandemic has made it possible to delimit education out of the confines of the classroom. The real challenge has been to reach out to those who do not have access to EdTech. Inspiring social enterprises like ConveGenius are playing their role in improving quality education in India.

ConveGenius presents a wonderful example of Nexus of Good as it has not only put in place a platform that enables EdTech access to those who could not afford it but also managed to scale the operations through a public-private partnership. There is still a long way to go but an encouraging beginning has been made by its visionary founders — Jairaj Bhattacharya and Shashank Pandey. The onus now lies on all the stakeholders of education to motivate students and teachers to learn and grow with their support.

Views expressed are personal