Virtual learning takes on eclectic tenets with this entrepreneur’s vision
A cartoon that showcases Vedantu's objective.
At a time when parents are busy jostling their children into tutorials packed with endless benches and tired faces, a Bengalurean is busy revolutionising learning. Meet 31-year-old Vamsi Krishna, an IITian whose teach tank, Vedantu is not just letting students pick the cream of the crop teachers for personalised coaching, but has now bagged a $5 million fund to keep going!
It all started out as a mission to glorify the teaching profession by creating a pool of awe-inspiring teachers who love what they do. “But education today is drifting towards generalisation and is accepted as ‘One size fits all.’ We believed that should change,” says the B.Tech graduate from IIT Bombay who got together with his best friends to develop a system of free institutions. “We started out at 23 as teachers, training students for competitive exams with our startup, Lakshya,” says Vamsi about him and his cofounders — Saurabh Saxena, Pulkit Jain and Anand Prakash. Like youngsters their age, they shirked parents’ arguments that ranged from ‘We didn’t send you to an IIT to start a startup and become a teacher’ to ‘Who will marry you now?,’ to make a mark.
Not just leaving the discussion on Goan beaches where it all started, Vamsi is now the CEO of Vedantu, an online tutoring platform that enables personal learning. The student and teacher are only divided virtually, by a screen, “Students from anywhere across the country, can pick quality teachers who will provide live teaching using whiteboard, audio and video technology, anytime and anywhere,” he says about the venture that is now a popular pick amidst thousands of students in over 41 cities, and which will soon be rolled out to rural sectors too. With an hourly rate of '150-200, Grades 6 and above can focus on individual subjects like Math, Science and English, can opt for monthly tuitions or clear on-demand doubts from professors at IITs, NITs, IISc, BITS etc.
Winner of the TiE-Luminus Award and being one of the top 100 social entrepreneurs for Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship, Vamsi isn’t just a tech bluestocking. “I’m also an amateur photographer,” he says. Even if he doesn’t bluff as a marketer, he’s won a few tournaments as a professional poker player too! But it’s his role as a teacher that he prides upon. “I believe it’s not just about the subject that a teacher teaches but the values he instills that makes him a great teacher, and the profession so gratifying,” he says. And if you can read this, you know that your teachers have done a fabulous job!
( Source : dc )
Next Story
