“Employees in India are looking forward to picking up new-age skills to make themselves more relevant in the current workforce. upGrad’s highly engaging online learning solution along with CohortPlus’s deep penetration in the community of Data Scientists and Product Managers, will allow us to reach a much larger and relevant audience,†Ronnie Screwvala and Mayank Kumar, Co-founders, upGrad said in a joint statement, published by yourstory.
Bengaluru-based CohortPlus was founded by Srinivasan Narayan
in 2015. It is an online community, which brings together like-minded
career aspirants on a single community platform, where they can network
with each other, ask and clarify doubts, and be abreast of the latest
events in the field of data science and product management.
Members can post their questions and get various perspectives from
industry professionals and can also get assistance for job interviews.
While, upGrad was founded by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh
in 2015. It has introduced 35 programmes in areas such as data science,
technology, and management, and has a paid learner base of 13,000.
On the other hand, according to the Talent Supply Indes (TSI) by
Belong, India has seen more than 400 per cent rise in demand for data
science professionals across varied industry sectors at a time when the
supply of such talent is witnessing a slow growth.
Govt must help unleash the massive potential of EdTech in India
A fraught public education system in India presents a variety of
opportunities for EdTech market players to enter with the promise of
customisation and efficiency.
Indian Education Technology (EdTech) solutions are being recognised globally
India’s very own EdTech unicorn Byju’s has spent $120m on Osmo — a US play-based learning start-up.
As the global education and training market is expected to be at $10 trillion by 2030, technology will change the way education systems are perceived, accessed, and utilized.
Aditi Bhutoria
Indian Education Technology (EdTech) solutions are being recognised
globally, with four of the nation’s start-ups being selected as a part
of 30 global finalists for the ‘Next Billion EdTech Prize 2019’ awarded
by UK-based Varkey Foundation. India’s very own EdTech unicorn Byju’s
has spent $120m on Osmo — a US play-based learning start-up. As the
global education and training market is expected to be at $10 trillion
by 2030, technology will change the way education systems are perceived,
accessed, and utilised.
With the largest young demography in the world that is getting
increasingly mobile-friendly and technologically connected, the Indian
EdTech market has a huge opportunity at hand. Indian start-ups can be at
the centre of this technological change, driving innovation to help a
young nation reach its demographic potential.
A fraught public education system in India presents a variety of
opportunities for market players to enter with the promise of
customisation and efficiency. Distortions in the schooling systems, such
as weak teacher incentives or outdated pedagogies, undermine student
learning and much of the impact of increasing existing educational
spending.
Here, technology-assisted innovations designed to address these
distortions are making quality teaching accessible for all, raising
learning levels, and increasing test scores, at a low cost. Moreover,
the present EdTech start-ups are striving to make ‘learning fun’ despite
different distractions surrounding students.
The disruptive innovation in this space is to encourage voluntary
self-learning rather than crammed or forced learning that focuses on
rote memorisation. Personalised e-learning solutions including
step-by-step learning methods, animated graphics, or blended teaching
approaches are making hard concepts easier to understand.
Favourable investment regulations support capital flows, with 100 per
cent foreign direct investment permissible in the Indian education
sector, protecting it from the plausible sickness of over-governance.
The EdTech market, thus, functions as an economic system where supply
and demand regulate its dealings. Such a market is characterised by
freedom of choice and free enterprise. Private entrepreneurs are free to
sell teaching-learning goods and services to a target groups of their
choice. Learners (or consumers) are free to buy those goods and services
that best satisfy their wants and needs. However, what drives this
space is competition. Competition ensures greater quality and lower
prices for education courses or products for the learners.
In such a market, China has emerged as a leader with an establishment
of 97 new unicorn companies in 2018 alone. The reasons could be that
Chinese parents are apprised about the importance of education, the
country has a massive population, and there is strong government
support. While India is similar to China in terms of having benefits of
demography and scale, the market conditions and government support
levels in our country are different.
On the supply side, the most nagging barrier to growth in the Indian
EdTech market is that undertaking new ventures or sustaining existing
ones remains costly. There are fixed costs to entry and the returns to
education can be small in the short-run, with benefits only reaped in
the medium- and long-run. For instance, the Indian EdTech industry has
about 3,500 companies operating at present with only around 274 backed
by investors. Of these, only 52 ventures have received cumulated funding
of greater than $1 million. This presents a starkly different business
landscape compared to our Chinese neighbours.
Education has positive externalities, which means that gains from the
education of a child or adult accrues not only to them but also to
other members of their family, society, and nation. Thus, a conducive
policy can focus not just on providing financial impetus to EdTech
ventures but also improving the productivity of educational investment,
through non-pecuniary support such as entrepreneurial training, strong
mentoring, or recognition.
Further, the multi-faceted nature of the Indian EdTech market has to
be studied in detail to differentiate between different types of
products, value created, and impacts of the same. For instance, EdTech
is not just e-learning; e-learning is only a small part of a very
diverse sector.
Overall, the B2B (business-to-business) EdTech market in India is
fragmented with buyers like government, high-budget and
affordable-private schools all functioning under varied regulations.
If the government can leverage on its public-school ecosystem to be
more open towards smart solutions and better integrate
technologically-driven learning opportunities for students, there can be
a shift in how EdTech is perceived by the society and would drastically
improve the existing market opportunities.
Finally, research and evaluation should be planned and used to make
evidence-based decisions on: which EdTech solutions work and which
don’t? As a way ahead, initiatives such as StartUp India can provide
increased emphasis on EdTech start-ups that are solving the most
challenging education problems in a cost-effective manner. Further,
integration of AI with education has already been recognised in the
current government’s vision; but AI solutions in education need to be
constructively expanded and rigorously tested.
Overall, with the stage being set through diverse offerings of
innovative products by the Indian EdTech industry, the government must
take the initiative to sustain these innovations so as to unleash its
massive social and economic potential.
Aditi Bhutoria is assistant professor, Public Policy and
Management Group, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Views are
personal.
Unacademy, an online learning platform, has raised $50 million Series D funding round
from Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume
Ventures. Aakrit Vaish, co-founder of tech firm Haptik and Sujeet
Kumar, co-founder of business-to-business online marketplace Udaan also
participated in the round, along with Unacademy founders, Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini.
“By leveraging technology and
high-quality educators, we aim to move closer to our mission of
democratising education at all levels, starting with test prep,†said
Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and chief executive of Unacademy. “We are seeing unprecedented growth and engagement from learners in smaller towns and cities, and are also very humbled to see that top-quality educators are choosing Unacademy as their primary platform to reach out to students.â€
The company now has more than 400 top educators from
across the country taking live classes every day on Unacademy Plus.
This is available to every student, irrespective of their location said
the company.
Unacademy recently launched its Plus Subscription, and since its launch, more than 50,000 learners have
subscribed to Unacademy Plus. The firm said this service is available
for more than 20 exam categories and provides students unlimited access
to live courses by top educators across the country. Learners get
a personalised live learning experience that is augmented by
doubt-clearing sessions with the educators, interactive classes and live
test series. More than 600 live classes are conducted every day by the
educators on Plus who teach from all across the country.
“Unacademy is a very meaningful ed-tech company in the making and
Sequoia India is excited to invest signiï¬cantly in this round,” said
Shailendra Singh, managing director, Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore.
“We were thrilled with how rapidly Gaurav (Munjal) and the team
converted some of our collective product brainstorming sessions into an
amazing live-streaming product and a subscription business for the test
prep market,†said Singh.
Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh
in 2015. The firm said the platform empowers educators by making it easy
for them to create high-quality educational lessons on the Educator
App, that learners access via the Learning App. The platform currently
has more than 10,000 registered educators and 13 million learners. The
company had previously raised a Series C round of $21 million in July
2018 from Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and
others. In October 2018, Unacademy acquired Jaipur-based online education and career portal Wiï¬study, one of the fastest growing education YouTube channels in the world.
The company said it has the largest distribution for educational
videos on its free platform and YouTube and Unacademy lessons have more
than 100 million monthly views across these platforms. Unacademy’s
YouTube channels currently have more than 11 million subscribers,
according to the company.
The global online education market
is projected to reach a total market size of $286.62 billion by 2023,
increasing from $159.52 billion in 2017, according to the report titled
‘Global Online Education Market.’
In March this year, another edtech company
Byju’s raised an additional funding of $31 million in a financing round
led by US-based growth equity investor General Atlantic (GA), along
with Chinese internet giant Tencent. The investment took the valuation
of Byju’s to over $5 billion, from $3.6 billion when it raised $540
million in a funding round led by South African conglomerate Naspers in
December last year.
Edtech companies to draw in $500 million in VC, PE funding in 2019
Educational technology companies are likely to attract $500 million in venture capital and private equity funding this year, experts say, as the untapped market for online learning gives enough room for these companies to scale up.
Educational technology companies are likely to attract $500 million
in venture capital and private equity funding this year, experts say, as
the untapped market for online learning gives enough room for these
companies to scale up.
Ed-tech companies, dominated by players such as Byju’s, Upgrad,
Toppr, Extramarks and Simplilearn, have attracted more than $1billion in
investment over the last two years.
These companies, along with Unacademy, CueMath, Meritnation,
Imarticus and Vedantu, have not only made significant headway in
expanding footprint in India but are also eyeing the overseas market. A
bunch of companies from this list is further looking to raise more
investments from VCs and PEs.
“Almost $1billion was invested in 2018 alone, with Byju’s taking the
lion’s share of about $500 million, followed by Embibe receiving about
$180 million,†said Amitabh Jhingan, partner, EY-Parthenon. “Based on
the observed flow in edtech, we can expect $0.5-0.75 billion to be
invested in the coming year.â€
Byju’s, one of the big ones in this space, is also hungry for more
capital. “We will raise more funds, if needed, for expansion,†said
Mrinal Mohit, ITS chief operating officer, adding that Byju’s is looking
to become a leading ed-tech player globally. Vedantu received
$11million in its last round from Accel Partners, Tiger Global, Omidyar
Networks and TAL. “We will be using the funds to scale our business and
are open to funding,†CEO Vamsi Krishna said.
The ed-tech industry is expected to touch about $2 billion in India
by 2021, industry trackers said. “PE/VC funds continue to be interested
across sub-segments of the space (K-12, reskilling and upskilling, test
preps, etc). India is an underpenetrated market in the ed-tech space and
is ripe for disruption,†said Ankur Pahwa, Partner and National Leader,
e-commerce and consumer internet, EY India. “India is no doubt set to
be one of the leading players in the global ed-tech space with
innovation taking centre-stage.
According to Meeker, India’s internet growth story has largely come from Reliance Jio
Meeker’s report also reveals that owing to the large base of
services Jio offers, the data usage has doubled in 2019 to close to 18
exabytes
New Delhi: More than half the world’s population is
active on the internet, with India accounting for about 12% of them,
retaining its second position, an annual report on internet trends by
venture capitalist Mary Meeker said on Tuesday.
China has the largest base, accounting for 21% of all internet users globally, and the US comes third at 8%.
The number of people active online in 2018 was approximately 3.8
billion, or 51% of the world’s population. That compares with the
previous year’s 3.6 billion people, or 49% of the world’s population.
The growth in internet users in India was driven by cut-price data plans introduced by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and cheaper smartphones, the report said.
According to Meeker, Reliance Jio has created a hybrid,
online-to-offline commerce platform by integrating Reliance Retail’s
physical marketplace with Reliance Jio’s digital infrastructure and
services, thus doubling its growth in a year to a total of 307 million
subscribers.
“This platform will bring together 350 million customer footfalls at
Reliance Retail stores, 307 million Jio connectivity customers and 30
million small merchants all over India who provide the last-mile
physical market connectivity,” the report cited Reliance Industries Ltd
chairman Mukesh Ambani as saying.
Jio’s free voice call and cheap data plans have helped double data usage in a year, the report said.
In the online education and learning platforms segment, Meeker
mentioned India’s Byju’s, a company that offers video-based classes for
students in the 9-17 age group and has about 2 million subscribers.
Globally, the report claims that growth in e-commerce
has quickened to 12.4% in 2018 from 12.1% in the previous year.
E-commerce also accounts for about 15% of the share of US retail sales.
Internet ad spending grew 22% in 2018, faster than the 21% in the
previous year, with platforms such as Google and Facebook leading the
pack. According to Meeker, Google’s ad revenue grew 1.4 times over the
past nine quarters and Facebook’s grew 1.9 times, while the combined
group of new players that included Amazon and Snapchat grew 2.6 times.
Similarly, digital media usage has accelerated with 7% growth in 2018,
the usage drivers being the growth of global internet and technology
businesses where investment has remained robust.
The time spent on viewing videos globally has doubled in the last one
year and according to the report, there are 1.5 billion monthly active
users on video platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok.
The number of interactive gamers worldwide grew 6% to 2.4 billion
people last year, as interactive games such as Fortnite became a hit,
reaching a user base of 250 million.
Podcasts have also grown, with roughly 70 million people globally
listening to podcasts in the US, a figure that has doubled in about four
years.
Also, the user base for voice-based devices like Amazon Echo grew, with Echo’s installation base doubling to 47 million in 2018.
Meeker also points out that seven of the top 10 companies in the
world by market capitalization are technology companies, and four of the
top six are US-based. These include Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and
Alphabet. Interestingly, 60% of the most highly valued tech companies
were founded by first- or second-generation immigrants and employed 1.9
million people last year.
The report also pointed out that cloud services revenues of Google,
Amazon and Microsoft are collectively closing in on $14 billion in 2018,
a jump of about 58% from the previous year.
More data is now stored in the cloud than on private enterprise servers or consumer devices.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 8:39 AM on Thursday, June 13th, 2019
Announced that on the heels of a recent trip to India in May 2019, entered a working relationship with another corporate client; McDonald’s India
betterU is already engaged in the development of the first job specific skills program and upon successful completion and approval by McDonald’s India, opportunities will grow to support their national employee base.
OTTAWA, June 13, 2019 – betterU Education Corp. TSXV-BTRU, (the “Company” or “betterU”) is pleased to announce that on the heels of a recent trip to India in May 2019, have entered a working relationship with another corporate client; McDonald’s India. betterU is already engaged in the development of the first job specific skills program and upon successful completion and approval by McDonald’s India, opportunities will grow to support their national employee base. The scope of proposed work includes online course development, instructor-led training as well as blended online programs.
After meeting with many prospective corporates and strategic partners
in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, betterU received a significant level of
interest for proposals and next steps from groups such as Clove Dental,
Evry, Unibic Cookies, Shine.com, Padmini Engineering, Hindustan Times,
NSDC and the Aerospace Sector Skill Counsel. Having recently finalized
the partnership deal with NSDC, which was announced earlier this week,
betterU has also completed five training and development proposals and
has high hopes of closing more corporate partnership agreements in the
upcoming weeks. “From the onset of our shift in focus to support
corporates, it has become clearer that the Indian corporate market is
primed for massive growth in online learning. According to a report by
Google and KMPG, the online education market will reach $1.9 billion by
2021. With over 700 corporates in our database, representing only a
fraction of the market, we have a lot of work ahead of us and if this
last trip is any indication of the opportunity, we are going to be busy!
It has been exciting to see the level of interest and we look forward
to what will come,†said Sameer Vatsa, Head of India betterU.
That challenges that most corporates face is that they are required
to source and manage multiple education providers, content developers,
and service providers in order to address the totality of their training
needs. It can become difficult to manage multiple vendors that, in most
cases, also use different technologies in the management and delivery
of their solutions. With betterU, corporates can gain access to the
breadth and depth of skilling programs across all categories such as
technology, soft skills, leadership, finance, sales and even job
specific programs. betterU can help the Learning and Development heads
of corporations by framing out the right solutions for them while
leveraging the best of the best educators from around the world to meet
their skilling needs. Employers can then focus on their employees,
rather than the challenges faced with sourcing and managing the learning
complexities.
betterU can provide access to the world’s leading off-the-shelf
programs, customized to meet a corporate’s needs, which also includes
custom content development services and instructor-led delivery options.
About betterU
betterU, a global education to employment platform, aims to provide
access to quality education from around the world to foster growth and
opportunity to those who want to better their lives. The company plans
to bridge the prevailing gap in the education and job industry and
enhance the lives of its prospective learners by developing an
integrated education to employment ecosystem. betterU’s offerings can be
categorized into several broad functions: to compliment school programs
with flexible preschool, KG-12 programs preparing children for next
stage of education, to provide access to global and localized
educational programs from leading educators, to foster an exceptional
educational environment by providing befitting skills that lead to a
better career, to bridge the gap between one’s existing education and
prospective job requirement by training them and lastly, to connect the
end user to various job opportunities. betterU today has partnered with
over 75 global educators, representing access to over 53,000 programs.
It is developing technology and ongoing more partners required to
support the growing education needs of the world.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as
that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements and
information, which may involve risks and uncertainties. The results or
events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual
results or events. Factors that might cause a difference include, but
are not limited to, competitive developments, risks associated with
betterU’s growth, the state of the financial markets, regulatory risks
and other factors. There can be no assurance or guarantees that any
statements of forward-looking information contained in this release will
prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ
materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all
subsequent written and oral statements containing forward-looking
information are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the
dates they are made and expressly qualified in their entirety by this
notice. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, betterU
disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future
events or otherwise. Readers should not place undue reliance on any
statements of forward-looking information that speak only as of the date
of this release. Further information on betterU’s public filings,
including their most recent audited consolidated financial statements,
are available at www.sedar.com.
Posted by AGORACOM-JC
at 10:32 AM on Wednesday, June 12th, 2019
Announced that National Skills Development Corporation and betterU have entered into a partnership effective today to support the advancing of the government’s skilling initiative in India
NSDC, under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, is a unique public private partnership (PPP) which catalyse the creation of skills development and vocational training ecosystem in India.
OTTAWA, June 12, 2019 – betterU Education Corp. (the “Company” or “betterU”) is pleased to announce that National Skills Development Corporation (“NSDCâ€) and betterU have entered into a partnership effective today to support the advancing of the government’s skilling initiative in India.
NSDC, under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development &
Entrepreneurship, is a unique public private partnership (PPP) which
catalyse the creation of skills development and vocational training
ecosystem in India. It is also an implementing agency for several
flagship programs under the Government of India i.e. Pradhan Mantri
Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Kendra (PMKK) etc.
NSDC’s objective is to contribute significantly to the overall target
of training youth in India by fostering private sector initiatives in
skill development programmes and to provide funding. NSDC’s mission
includes:
Upgrading skills to international
standards through significant industry involvement and development of
necessary frameworks for standards, curriculum and quality assurance.
Enhancing, supporting and coordinating
private sector initiatives for skill development through appropriate
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models; striving for significant
operational and financial involvement from private sector.
Playing the role of a ‘market-maker’ by
bringing funds, particularly in sectors where market mechanisms are
ineffective or missing.
Prioritising initiatives that can have a multiplier or catalytic effect as opposed to one-off impact.
betterU’s CEO and team met with the MD & CEO of NSDC, Manish
Kumar in Mumbai last month and again the following week at their offices
in Delhi along with their leadership team. After lengthy discussions
and thoroughly understanding betterU, NSDC agreed that a formal
partnership would enable the advancement of our collective efforts
towards skilling India. “NSDC is focused on solutions that add value
to high quality skills development and vocational trainings across
India. After observing the offerings of betterU, we agreed that our
partnership could significantly contribute towards our common objectives
of skill development. We look forward to working closely with betterU
in the coming months,†said Manish Kumar, MD & CEO, NSDC.
Since inception back in 2013, betterU has been focused on the
developing of an education to employment ecosystem that could support
education for not only India, but the world. betterU’s leadership has
been travelling the world speaking at conferences and working to bring
together global educators onto one platform, which is required to
support mass education and skilling. “To equalized education for
all, one world requires one education platform where we can work
collectively together to support not only individual learners, but
entire countries as well. This partnership with NSDC will help us
further increase the ability to achieve positive results for the masses,†said Brad Loiselle President and CEO of betterU.
With upwards of 150 million people across 38 industry sectors
requiring skill training, betterU’s partnership with NSDC will provide
the opportunity for the masses to gain access to what they need at
affordable fees. betterU’s business model was designed to continually
add global content and methods of delivery to support all types of
learning. This way employees looking for skill advancements, corporates
looking to provide access to customized employee solutions, freshers
looking to gain access skills development programs in preparation for
work, Sector Skill Councils (SSCs) looking to support their mandates
across industries and various types of skills training can all be
coordinated and supported through betterU and their global partnerships.
betterU in partnership with NSDC, will also work to integrate and
collaborate with other NSDC solutions, technologies and partners to
build provide a more comprehensive system.
betterU is planning a national launch campaign across India for the
15th July 2019 to support their partnership and to align it with the
World Youth Skills Day. As part of this launch, betterU will be
allocating over $600,000 of its marketing budget supported by Hindustan
Times’ properties. The marketing investment will help support access to
betterU’s global education partners. This national campaign is currently
being planned and assembled.
About betterU
betterU, a global education to employment platform, aims to provide
access to quality education from around the world to foster growth and
opportunity to those who want to better their lives. The company plans
to bridge the prevailing gap in the education and job industry and
enhance the lives of its prospective learners by developing an
integrated education to employment ecosystem. betterU’s offerings can be
categorized into several broad functions: to compliment school programs
with flexible preschool, KG-12 programs preparing children for next
stage of education, to provide access to global and localized
educational programs from leading educators, to foster an exceptional
educational environment by providing befitting skills that lead to a
better career, to bridge the gap between one’s existing education and
prospective job requirement by training them and lastly, to connect the
end user to various job opportunities. betterU today has partnered with
over 75 global educators, representing access to over 53,000 programs.
It is developing technology and ongoing more partners required to
support the growing education needs of the world. www.betterU.in
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as
that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements and
information, which may involve risks and uncertainties. The results or
events predicted in these statements may differ materially from actual
results or events. Factors that might cause a difference include, but
are not limited to, competitive developments, risks associated with
betterU’s growth, the state of the financial markets, regulatory risks
and other factors. There can be no assurance or guarantees that any
statements of forward-looking information contained in this release will
prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could differ
materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all
subsequent written and oral statements containing forward-looking
information are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the
dates they are made and expressly qualified in their entirety by this
notice. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, betterU
disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future
events or otherwise. Readers should not place undue reliance on any
statements of forward-looking information that speak only as of the date
of this release. Further information on betterU’s public filings,
including their most recent audited consolidated financial statements,
are available at www.sedar.com.
The promise of edtech has been there for a long time.
Last two years, the sector has been getting attention and it is turning into real opportunities,†says GV Ravishankar, managing director of Sequoia Capital in India, who has several investments in edtech firms in Asia.
Tan Zhai Yun  Â
Technology has changed the way people learn. From massive open online courses (MOOCs) to virtual classrooms such as Blackboard and on-demand video tutors, education technology (edtech) has emerged as a rapidly growing sector, especially in Asia. It has also attracted a lot of investor interest.
“The promise of edtech has been there for a long time. But I think in
the last two years, the sector has been getting attention and it is
turning into real opportunities,†says GV Ravishankar, managing director
of Sequoia Capital in India, who has several investments in edtech
firms in Asia.
Edtech refers to technology that is used to develop tools for the
education sector. For example, it could be in the form of classroom
management software that enables virtual classrooms, interactive apps
that educate users on various topics or platforms that connect tutors
and students virtually.
The recent boom in Asia is driven by factors such as the growing
mobile penetration rate, affordable internet access, willingness by
parents to pay for education and a strong demand for supplementary
education materials.
One of Sequoia’s investee companies is BYJU’S, an Indian edtech that
is attempting to fill the gap left by a lack of good teachers. It offers
students a personalised learning journey into subjects such as maths
and science via online videos, animations and illustrations in a mobile
app.
Sequoia also has an investment in Edusys, which provides professional
certification and test preparation courses in online, classroom and
hybrid formats. “We are quite bullish on the trend because we are seeing
consumers adapt to online learning models quickly. The younger
generation is very comfortable learning online. So, from our
perspective, we think the market is ripe [for investments],†says
Ravishankar.
Jeffrey Paine, managing partner of Golden Gate Ventures (GGV), sees
the edtech sector as a relatively new segment. Investors must choose
carefully, depending on the country and target market, whose needs may
differ widely. GGV is invested in KooBits, a Singapore-based edtech firm
that teaches math online.
“China is leading the way with edtech. The US tends to have
alternative high schools or universities, whereas India tends to have a
bit more video-based learning and a lot of focus on K-12 [kindergarten
to 12th grade] maths and science,†says Paine.
“In Southeast Asia, Vietnam is growing fast, from K-12 content and
corporate training on how to use Microsoft Excel to online video-based
English tutoring. In Malaysia, one example is a company called
EduAdvisor, which helps inform people who are going overseas to apply
for schools.â€
EduAdvisor has received venture capital funding from 500 Startups and
the KK Fund, according to Pitchbook, a US-based data provider in the
areas of venture capital, private equity and mergers and acquisitions.
According to a 2016 report by UK-based consultancy IBIS Capital, the
edtech market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of
17% to US$252 billion in 2020 globally. While the US previously led the
pack, Asia is currently experiencing the fastest growth in investments
in the sector, going from 46% of the global market to 54%.
This is particularly true for China. According to a 2017 report by
Pitchbook, the biggest edtech venture capital deals had been found in
Greater China in the past five years. Three of the top five edtech
investments since 2012 have also been in the country.
This has led to the birth of several edtech unicorns, including
VIPKid and Yuanfudao. The former is an online English learning platform
while the latter is a homework assistance app. Users can take a picture
of their arithmetic homework, for instance, and the app will use
artificial intelligence to check the answers.
India has an edtech unicorn in BYJU’S, which received Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative’s first investment outside of the US. Some of the big
players in Indonesia and Vietnam are Ruangguru, a marketplace for
private tutoring, and Topica Edtech Group, whose offerings include live
English tutoring and bachelor’s degree programmes online.
Ravishankar believes that the edtech trend is being driven by the
prevalence of computing and smartphones in the hands of end-consumers.
“For example, a huge population in India began to have access to really
affordable broadband in recent years and this is the first time they are
experiencing the internet. That has allowed many companies to reach out
to hundreds of millions of people and it enables consumers to
experience the power of education through technology,†he says.
The other major factor driving edtech investments in Asia is the high
value that parents attach to education. This results in a greater
willingness to pay for education in markets such as China, India and
Southeast Asia.
“Perhaps this goes back to the market structure some of these
countries have. In the US, most people go to public schools, which have
delivered reasonably good quality education. That is why people there
are not as used to paying for education. But in China and India, people
are willing to pay so their children can find jobs. In India, education
is seen as a way of getting out of poverty and getting a well-paying
job,†says Ravishankar.
This means the kinds of edtech companies serving Asian and Western
countries are different. In the US, many edtech firms focus on selling
to school districts whereas in Asia, they may target parents.
“We have seen an example in China in the form of VIPKid. It has a
very interesting model of teaching English to Chinese students through
teachers who are in the US. It leverages the language advantage that
English-speaking countries have to teach students in China, where there
is a huge demand to learn English. That is possible because high-quality
internet access is widely available,†says Ravishankar.
Opportunities in edtech
Edtech companies with the most potential for growth tend to be those
that serve consumers directly or provide content that supplements the
school curriculum. “That is because there are so many students in that
age group and younger people are more comfortable with technology,†says
Ravishankar.
This is especially true for subjects such as English and maths, the
mastery of which can boost the chances of a child getting a good job in
the future. There are many popular edtech companies in the region
targeting those who want to learn English such as the Topica Edtech
Group in Vietnam and Globish Academia in Thailand.
“In Singapore and Malaysia, students learn from courses provided by
edtech companies just like they would by going for offline tuition
classes. You have to take your SPM, so you need to go for tuition
classes where they teach you how to pass your exam,†says Paine.
“The services provided by these companies may be homework-driven. It
could be that I am stuck doing my homework and I need a social network
to teach me how to solve problems. It could be a live video tutoring
session or online curriculum.â€
GGV invested in KooBits because of its track record over the years.
The latter is now used by students in countries such as the Philippines
and Indonesia. The reputation of the Singaporean maths curriculum —
which has been ranked the best in the world by some international
agencies — has increased the attractiveness of the company in the eyes
of its potential customers.
There are also opportunities in the working adults segment, a group
that could comprise more serious learners with a greater willingness to
pay for these services. Sequoia invested in India-based Eruditus, which
partners Ivy League Schools in the US and top universities in the UK to
offer online courses for professionals.
“It [Eruditus] puts some of its undergraduate education programmes
online. This is for professionals who want to learn things such as data
science or the new generation of technology tools that are impacting
management today,†says Ravishankar.
While this idea is not new — it was popularised through MOOCs run by
those like Coursera and Khan Academy — a new set of players, such as
Eruditus, have changed the game for this sub-segment of providers, says
Ravishankar. Users learn online together in a virtual class, listening
to the same teacher in the same time period. They have projects, group
work and online discussion sessions.
“It is an online application of the offline student environment. I
think they have created models that allow for substantially higher
completion rates compared with MOOCs because this creates familiarity
among the cohort. These companies came up in the last few years and we
are pretty optimistic about what that means for edtech and higher
education,†says Ravishankar.
Edtech companies in Asia face a few common challenges. One of them is
gaining the trust of users. Second, the cost of acquiring customers can
be quite high because of the online competition for users.
The business-to-consumer market is where the future of edtech is, in
Ravishankar’s view. That is because business-to-business edtech
companies face challenges in selling their solutions. “That model has
been traditionally hard to scale because you have school networks that
are highly disorganised. Selling to them and collecting money from them
have been tough,†he says.
Addressing India’s Reskilling Challenge – A Report By AIM
Even with the third-largest developer base and a substantial tech-savvy talent pool, India lags behind its peers on major AI indicators.
This is despite a thriving startup ecosystem, high-growth companies which have made a substantial investment in setting up CoEs and the Government investing in building a robust tech infrastructure.
Behind the AI and data analytics boom, lies the story of a massive talent gap as workforce struggles to remain employable. The skills’ shelf life has shortened, with technology changing exponentially over the last decade, skills that were relevant at the beginning of the career have become obsolete. In order to remain employable, the workforce needs to reskill to take advantage of new opportunities. The rise of edtech companies in India is not surprising, given the huge clamour for continuous learning that has taken root in the professional sphere. This is backed by the rise of emerging technologies — artificial intelligence, its subset machine learning and data science which has spawned a booming job market revolving around new technologies that has substantially transformed India’s IT labour market.
The changing job economy has resulted in new opportunities for the
Indian workforce. As estimated by a consulting major, AI has the
potential to add US$957 billion, or 15 percent of India’s current gross
value in 2035. The booming economy, fuelled by AI and advanced analytics
requires more Indians to enter the workforce with a different
skill-set. As per our estimate, close to 97,000 AI positions lie vacant
in India.
But,
the challenges are also increasing multifold — on the one hand India
Inc is struggling with disruptions like automation that are redefining
jobs and secondly, it is grappling with finding the right talent with
the right skillset for AI/ML and data science teams. Meanwhile, the
upcoming generation that will enter the workforce soon is fed on an
outdated curriculum that hasn’t kept up with the industry’s demands.In
our report, we dig into the educational stakeholder landscape to see how
they are transforming the skills market by developing training courses
and certification programmes that correspond to in-demand skills
required today. We look at the type of educational institutions offering
data and analytics programs; how the educational landscape is changing
in response to the heightened demand for analytics skills and what needs
to be done to fill the skill gap.
The second half of the report looks at our last three years ranking
data to find out the winning attributes that have helped analytics
institutes rank on top consistently and how other training institutes
have fared over the last three years.Key Highlights
The online reskilling market is estimated to be $93 million and is expected to grow at a rate of 38%.
As compared to other educational categories (secondary supplemental
education providers and GMAT/ GRE/GATE test preparation providers) the
reskilling market is more mature
Current market is largely B2C driven but educational stakeholders are also actively catering to the B2B segment
Reskilling market in India is driven by the needs of a large working population looking for industry-relevant skills
Online key players are also moving towards blended educational
solutions by creating offline touchpoints to provide peer interaction
Emphasis on personalised learning has led to mentorship and offline
touchpoints that helps students gain handson experience for particular
concepts
Business Analytics course was the starting point, besides this,
other courses that are gaining traction are Artificial Intelligence,
Machine Learning, Data Science & Analytics & Data Engineering
Partnerships between analytics education providers and universities in offering niche courses
Higher demand for short-term diploma courses in in-demand areas such as Blockchain, Data Science and Machine Learning
Virtual classroom concept that began in 2014 has brought high quality analytics education more accessible
Key tools learnt are R, SAS, Python, on big data end Hive, Pig, Hadoop and in AI/ML end Tensorflow and Keras
Key Players In The Reskilling Market
In order to capitalise on these opportunities, IT companies,
educators and policymakers need to develop a deeper understanding of the
existing workforce, the skill-set required in the future, and the gaps
that will need to be addressed. This implies that these three key
players need to align the broader economic developer agenda with the
shifting job market and work towards building a strong talent that has
the baseline and digital skills required for current landscape. At the
Government level, policy makers will have to assess secondary and
postsecondary education and align it with the skills that are required
for tomorrow. Many leading Indian IT majors have undertaken
employer-training initiatives, pre-employment training and have also
provided their own courseware. Collectively, the key stakeholders can
foster a workforce development ecosystem and provide domain specific
training with a job-first approach. Given this scenario — educational
stakeholders have made a very strong business case for reskilling the
workforce and have actively partnered with renowned educational
institutions to launch technical certifications and degree programmes
tailored to fill the skill gap.
Analytics Education Landscape
The nature of analytics education has evolved over the last few years
and a mix of models have emerged in the online and offline space to
accommodate the changing requirements of students. Learners seek a
career-focused analytics education augmented by classroom setting that
prepare them for job functions in data analytics space.
• In cases where learning is delivered purely online, participants
look for realtime learning in a format that allows learners to pursue it
at their own pace
• Candidates look for course content created by top instructors, with
industry and university collaboration to provide a well-rounded
analytics education
• Executive programs are also in high demand as these are intended
for senior professionals who want to renew their skillset and understand
how data can be helpful in managerial decision making
• In case of executive analytics courses, technical skills such as
data management are augmented by soft skills such as business
understanding and communication
• Analytics education providers in India mostly offer Business
Analytics (BA) and Business Intelligence (BI) programs that combine
analytical number crunching, reporting and visualization techniques
Learning Formats
The learning formats can be broadly put under 4 categories:
Self-paced learning delivered via recorded video content
Instructor-Led live classroom sessions delivered online
Blended learning format with classroom and online delivery
Bootcamps for intensive, in-person learning that provides a hands-on experience
Around 87 percent of analytics courses from private training institutes are delivered in the self-paced learning models
6 percent are delivered in the hybrid (Self-paced and Instructor-Led
online) format and 4 percent in Instructor Led weekend and self-paced
format
There’s only a 3 percent uptake for weekend classroom format
On average, analytics courses by private institutes offer 105 hours of instructor contact hours
The hybrid model of self-paced + online Instructor-Led courses has the highest number of contact hours at 157.
The blended learning opportunity allows learners to get continuous feedback and participate in real-time assessment
Weekend-only model has the least contact hours at 75
For those looking for face-to-face learning environment, weekend model is the best fit
