A chemical engineering and business management graduate of the blue- chip IIT-Bombay and IIM-Ahmedabad, K. Sharat Chandra (34) is co-founder of the Hyderabad-based Butterfly Edufields Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2008), an education venture which designs and markets innovative hands-on science and maths learning kits for K-10 schools. The company’s in-school and after-school learning-by-doing kits are being used by 51,000 children in 120 private schools, and over 400,000 children in 3,800 government schools in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Newspeg. Butterfly Edufields recently won the 3rd All India Management Association (AIMA) Global innovation award, and received Rs.5 crore as venture capital from the Mumbai-based Aavishkaar Venture Management Services.
History. Schooled in Korba (Chhattis-garh) and Nagpur, Secunderabad-born Sharat Chandra worked for two years as a business analyst with auditing and consulting major KPMG after graduating from IIT-B in 2001, prior to joining IIM-A in 2003. While preparing for a professional career in industry, he met with former IIM-A professor-turned- social entrepreneur Sunil Handa who promoted the highly acclaimed Eklavya School, Ahmedabad in 2004, which aroused his interest in K-12 education.
Moreover while on an exchange programme to Germany, Chandra visited several primary-secondary schools in Leipzig. “I was struck by the huge emphasis accorded to practical training in German schools, which is in sharp contrast to our own system of education which is totally devoid of experiential and conceptual understanding,” recalls Chandra.
This epiphany prompted him to promote a learning centre for children to advance their understanding of science and maths concepts in 2005. Three years later, the venture transformed into Butterfly Edufields which has established five science learning centres in schools and designed hands-on learning programmes for students. Since then the company’s maths and science do-it-yourself experiment kits, card games, board games and activities for children mapped to the syllabi of CISCE, CBSE and state examination boards, have become very popular with school managements, teachers and students. All kits are indigenous and designed by an R&D team under guidance of experienced school teachers from top-ranked schools. The company has established a manufacturing unit in Hyderabad with a capacity to produce 400,000 kits per annum.
Direct talk. “I was saddened by surveys which indicated that given a bulb, a pair of wires, and a battery, 80 percent of engineering graduates were unable to connect the circuit and light up the bulb. There’s a huge gap between theory and practice in Indian education which is evident right from school where learning means merely passing examinations. I entirely subs-cribe to the message in the Chinese proverb, ‘You hear you forget, you see you remember and you do, you understand’. Experiential learning makes education meaningful and skills oriented,” says Chandra.
Future plans. Greater awareness of the importance of learning by doing within the teacher, parent and student communities has encouraged Chandra to set ambitious targets for Butterfly Edufields. “We have set targets to reach one million children in private and 10 million children in government schools with our curriculum-mapped in-school and after-school science and maths learning programmes. We want to see smiles on the faces of children as they learn. This is the prerequisite of children enjoying and retaining what they learn,” says Chandra.
Wind beneath your wings!
Aruna Ravikumar (Hyderabad)