There’s no stopping the exponential growth of India’s ICT-in-education products and services providers who raked in revenues estimated at Rs.8,000 crore in 2009, in a market growing at 40 percent per year. This industry is experiencing a heady boom with a steady stream of private sector edupreneurs joining the fray for providing digital products and services to the world’s largest child population. While pioneers such as Educomp Solutions and Everonn Education have established reputations in ICT services, mushrooming new tech companies are swiftly innovating products and services to get a slice of the ever-growing pie of Indian school education.
The latest entrant into this happening sector is Bangalore-based Ariem Technologies Pvt. Ltd (estb. 2007). Promoted by Amar Gupta, founder of Amber Networks together with Ravi Bail Bhat and Imtiyaz Kaji — all of whom held senior positions at Nokia, Amber and Wipro — Ariem is set to formally launch its Razorbee Teachers’ Aid for delivering audio-visual content in primary and secondary classrooms.
“A majority of the education technology companies offer readymade audio-visual content to K-12 students and teachers. Although this saves teachers’ time, it makes them into receivers rather than creators of digitalised content. The objective of Razorbee is to empower teachers to create and develop their own content by researching and using the vast resources available on the internet. Our interaction with hundreds of teachers across the country indicates that teachers experience pride and satisfaction when they self-create audio-visual content, and are more enthused to deliver such content to students,” says Ravi Bail Bhat, an electrical engineering graduate of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore who put in a long stint with Wipro (1986-1999) followed by Amber Networks (1999-2001), Nokia India (2001-2005) and Sure Waves, a digital signage company (2005-2007). In October 2007, Bhat joined forces with two former colleagues to co-found Ariem Technologies with an initial investment of $2 million (Rs.9 crore).
According to Bhat, the first year of Ariem, which currently employs a small team of 23 professionals in its Bangalore head office, was spent in researching and developing Razorbee. In early 2009, it was tested on a pilot basis in a few schools of the garden city. “In our visits to schools, we realised that utilisation of installed ICT infrastructure by teachers is minimal either because of fear of damaging expensive equipment and/or ignorance of technology. Therefore we decided to develop a low-cost and easy-to-use device which teachers could use to create audio-visual lessons with a minimal investment of Rs.8,950 which is the retail price of the Razorbee device,” says Bhat who adds that Ariem provides hands-on training for teachers and on-going customer support.
Currently 20 schools in Bangalore and Hyderabad have signed up with Ariem Technologies, and by July another 100 schools countrywide are expected to come aboard. Encouraged by the enthusiastic feedback this indigenously developed product has received from the otherwise indifferent teachers’ community, the company’s top trio has drawn up an ambitious blueprint to roll out the product nationally. “By next year we expect to reach 500 schools, as well as retail the product through distributors nationwide. Simultaneously, we are working on enhancing the features of Razorbee to enable teachers to improve learning outcomes. Tackling teacher inertia is a big challenge, but we hope to effect a mindset change by offering them an easy way of creating interesting audio-visual content,” says Bhat.
Fair winds!
Summiya Yasmeen (Bangalore)