A mix of motivations — hands-on experience of cutting edge information technologies, love of mathematics and dissatisfaction with the way young children are being introduced to the subject — has prompted Vadodara-based Kannan and Bharathy Bharadwaj to opt out of high-flying corporate careers and focus on developing maths learning programmes for class I-VIII children in India. “When we returned to India in 2005 and our son Rajiv began attending the DPS School in Vadodara, Bharathy and I felt there should be easier and more interesting ways to teach maths to children in their early years. And since we both have an information technology background, we felt this objective could be attained through innovative use of computer technology,” says Kannan Bharadwaj, an alumnus of IIT-Chennai and universities of Toledo and Michigan, USA who worked for 15 years in American industry including stints with the Ford Motor Co and General Motors (GM) in the US, prior to being posted to Vadodara to work with GM (India) in 2005.
The outcome of the in-house deliberations of this duo is Math Buddy LLC, a US-registered company which offers online maths learning programme packages comprising numerous “interactive activities designed to make math learning fun and engaging”. “Our delivery model is two-fold. In schools we install Math Buddy as a virtual math lab programme accessible to every student or classroom, and to parents we reach out through an affordable Rs.1,500 annual subscription. This way students can continue learn-ing at home with parental assistance,” says Bharathy Bharadwaj, an alumna of the Madras Institute of Techn-ology who pressed on to acquire a Masters in computer science from Eastern Michigan University, and promoted a web design company under the name and style of SolutionSpace in the US.
With the past two years spent in product and interactive software development, the company has test marketed Math Buddy locally in Gujarat with several client schools, including Navarachana schools in Vadodara and DPS, Ahmedabad, reporting excellent results. “Now we are in the process of scaling up our sales and distribution efforts all over India. To this end we have established a dealer network to demonstrate the capabilities of Math Buddy to schools across the country,” says Bharathy.
Even as the marketing campaign for Math Buddy, which offers packages ranging from Rs.20,000-1.75 lakh, has begun, the Bharadwajs are confident of a positive response from school managements, parents and students. “Our target is to install Math Buddy in 250 schools countrywide and get 10,000 parent subscriptions in the academic year 2010-2011. And looking at the response we are getting from schools across India, we are quite confident about achieving these targets,” says Bharadwaj.
Fair winds!
Dilip Thakore (Bangalore)