ThinkZone

Binayak Acharya is the Founder and CEO of the venture backed social impact startup - ThinkZone. He is a Laureate Global Fellow, MassChallenge Alumnus and a CEMEX-TEC global social entrepreneur. Binayak has worked with the World Bank as a Global Education Practice Consultant. He has also been associated with Unitus, a venture capital firm as a Startup Scout and with Larsen & Toubro as a SAP BI Consultant. An alumnus of Xavier Institute of Management - India and a World Bank Youth Summit Winner, Binayak is passionate about inclusive development and has worked widely in under-resourced communities for several years. Binayak is a D-Prize grant winner for increasing access to poverty interventions.

His background spans in the areas of Early Grade Education, Impact Investment, ICT4D, Public Policies, Education Technology, Skills Development and Livelihoods. 

Nearly, 45 million children in the age-group of 3-10 years don't get access to quality education opportunities. Most of them suffer and are several learning levels behind of where they should be.

ThinkZone works towards improving the educational outcomes of children from under-resourced communities using a 'tech plus touch' model and activity-based methodology. We enable community educators, childcare workers workers, primary school teachers and parents to deliver quality early-grade education programs by using ThinkZone's technology, teaching resources and learning activities. 

ThinkZone has already provided ‘level-based’ early-childhood and primary level education to 5,000+ children across remote villages of India, who have shown 1-2 levels improvement in learning levels within a period of 1 year. ThinkZone’s work has also led to an average 30% increase in the overall skills of the 400+ educators who have gone through 1 year of training and support.

Providing quality education to the under-resourced communities is a huge challenge across in India. Imagine being asked to read long paragraphs and tested on it without ever getting the chance to learn the alphabet; or having to solve mathematical equations, without knowing numbers. That is the struggle of nearly 25 million children in primary grades who are 2-3 class-levels behind in terms of their language and arithmetic skills, which has been found out from government-administered large-scale surveys.

Education during the formative years of a child defines his/ her career and life. Unfortunately, children living in poor communities of India, start out with low-quality learning opportunities which lead to them having limited educational foundations. By one estimate, nearly 20 million children in India fail to reach their potential in cognitive development by age 5 years. So they are at a disadvantage when they enter the public education system and lack the basic skills to do well in schools.

Education is critical for setting young people up for employment. Unfortunately, most young people from India come from humble educational backgrounds. They also lack the relevant skills and have limited access to innovative platforms, technologies or entrepreneurial approaches to earn livelihoods.

ThinkZone works towards improving the educational outcomes of children from under-resourced communities using a 'tech plus touch' model and activity-based methodology. We enable community educators, childcare workers workers, primary school teachers and parents to deliver quality early-grade education programs by using ThinkZone's technology, teaching resources and learning activities. 

ThinkZone also uses accessible technology to identify, skill & equip youth to become education micro-entrepreneurs & community change agents. Youth from low-resourced communities become skilled & effective facilitators and work towards developing the foundational skills of children by using an innovative localized solution, data-driven mobile technology & community interaction platform.

With the mobile platform, youth with zero teaching & technology skills can implement high-quality education programs in their communities. The mobile application helps in identifying student's current ability through diagnostic testing & then develops personalized curricula based on each student’s specific needs which are then implemented by trained youth.

For children who have not started formal schooling and already behind actual learning competencies, the multi-level early childhood education programs makes them school ready. Similarly, for children who are already in formal primary school but several steps behind learning levels, our five-level remedial primary grade program helps them develop age appropriate skills.

The project is directly aligned to SDG Goal 4 of “Ensuring inclusive & equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all”. The project ensures that all children from poor background have access to quality pre-primary and primary education so that they have a solid foundation to do well in their lives. The project also substantially increases the number of youth who have relevant skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

Most of the public schools & childcare centers servicing children from low-income families are completely under-resourced with limited learning facilities & digital access along with high teacher-to-student ratios. Young educators present here have limited access to training & content which prevents them from instructing effectively which directly affects children's learning. Not all families are able to afford private facilities and so children are unable to develop the appropriate foundational skills by age 10. The youth passing out of such a system has limited skill sets and lacks access to high-quality skill development opportunities which limits their growth.

Two major aspects come out of the above-mentioned problems:

1. Quality early education holds the key to shaping up a country’s future
2. Innovative interventions for youth can lead to a massive societal change

ThinkZone is creating a scalable model of technology & community interventions that can be adapted to the local context. Our initial years of work have led to the development of technology platform, education and training content for first-generation learners along with the successful implementation of the low-cost operating model. We have demonstrated significant social impact in the rural communities of Odisha & now want to scale the solution across India and the world. We want to make the existing platform more data-driven and expand via public-private partnerships.

I belong to Odisha, India which unfortunately has one of the worst HDIs. My thinking of what I want to do in life have been affected from my firsthand experiences of the massive societal inequality happening around me. Despite receiving a decent education, it used bother me a lot for not being able to do utilize it effectively. Continuing with a plush corporate job would have been ideal but taking a life changing decision to work in the left-wing extremism affected areas on several pro-people initiatives gave me a wider perspective on the true meaning of ‘sustainable development’.

ThinZone has been born from many heartfelt interactions I had with youth across left-wing extremism affected districts of Malkangiri & Rayagada in Odisha, of how their fates could have been different had they received a good education early on! These real-time experiences while travelling during work stints showed me that education has the potential to change lives and made me take up the challenge of lessening the divide between ‘Bharat’(undeveloped) and ‘India’(developed). I dream that every Indian child not just goes to school but has the minimum learning competencies to succeed in life.

Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, my idol had always believed that ensuring quality education to children will help India become a super-power. He inspired me in a lot of ways but one thing which inspired me most was his reaction and adaptation to failure. He never stopped working and dreaming just because of failure instead he worked harder

We have been able to enroll children in schools but have been unable to make them learn! The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.

Education is the foundation of a healthy & growth-oriented society & so its development in the underserved areas is very dear to me. Providing a good foundation through quality early-grade education has become by passion. 

I have always been fascinated by various community-based models wherein under-resourced areas have come to the forefront through innovative local level approaches. I firmly believe in the age-old saying of ‘Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you a feed him for a lifetime’ and trying to implement the same through a community enhancement model. 

Leaving a plush corporate job to be a part of something that could positively affect people from low-income communities, I had first started out as a part of a three member team that had formulated and implement a community owned and managed rural alternate livelihood generation initiative for the poorest of poor. Heading the state operations of a successful social enterprise and executing different social projects related to Higher Education, Skill Development and ICT4D has helped me a get a deeper understanding of the challenges involved in building something sustainable. 

Being a part of the largest development bank and working towards project preparation and execution of a multi-million dollar education initiative has given me the exposure of working with public and private sectors in developing countries for reducing poverty and building shared prosperity. Apart from this, my experience in working on several development and advocacy projects like educational policies formulation, sanitation model implementation, disaster management plan design etc along with various social enterprises and government departments has given me a good exposure on knowledge management of government policies.

My experience in handling many social startups by virtue of my association with an impact investment firm has also given me a wide range of experience about innovative practices that can be scaled up across the globe.

With my prior experience in skill development space, stakeholder analysis, social startups, issue-based advocacy along with years of work on innovative development approaches will definitely aid me in charting out a successful entrepreneurial journey.

Having built ThinkZone from scratch, bootstrapped for 3 years while
making mistakes & learning from them have made me realize that perseverance is what matters the most in a social enterprise’s success. Even if one is committed to their work, it takes time for others to appreciate and support financially, and, many a times lack of capital has cuts short an enterprise’s life. After investing personally in ThinkZone and being short on capital from year 2 onward, I stayed put and was successfully able to gather funds from multiple sources(angels) which helped us to pilot in a new district.

We started implementing ThinkZone’s Early-Childhood Education program by setting learning centers in remote villages. Despite, the best of our efforts, I failed to make them self sustainable and had to close it down after a couple of years, due to lack of funds. But these failures helped us to realize a working model which could be implemented in a scalable and cost-effective manner. We pivoted from a B2C to a B2B model by partnering with public and private organizations in delivering quality education programs. This has helped us increase our outreach and social impact 10X times in the last 2 years!

My team has often described my work style to be flexible and pragmatic. Being the single founder of an emerging social enterprise with limited resources, I have been successfully balancing different roles while ever ready to develop new skill sets to complete work. After piloting our programs and executing it via a center-based model, I realized it was possible to decrease the distribution costs by further tweaking our model. It was an important call, considering that the current process was working well. But by pivoting to a ‘school-in-a-box’ approach we were not only able to decrease the distribution costs by 60% ($464 to $184), we were also able to decrease the operational cost per child’s to less than $1/month which helped us to reach out to more families in a limited budget within a couple of years. Sometimes challenging the status-quo through our on-ground learning becomes essential, and, in this case my team did mention having being motivated by my flexible approach to work.

• The technology platform assesses the learning needs of the women(educator), identifies gaps in their skills and then curates and paces the learning development cycle
• The platform will assess children’s learning needs, and gaps in learning, particularly as they relate to foundational skills in language and arithmetic
• The solution will be in vernacular language and would be contextual in nature
• The solution combines offline strategies with online through digital engagement platforms. Our operating model, the major part of which includes offline technology will help educators to implement quality and effective education programs while simultaneously developing their skills
• The solution is implemented in direct coordination with the public and private partnerships. The on-ground project messaging and communication via partnerships lead to better activities execution.
• Our innovation lies in the fact that using the technology platform requires very limited knowledge of technology! Due to this, youth who come from a limited educational background and have little exposure to the latest technology can easily use it to become effective educators

The solution brings a micro-entrepreneurial approach towards education which is unique in nature. It also brings a personalized approach of developing skills of youth who not only utilize it to become better educators but also to find out alternate career options. Most of the skill enhancement programs at scale have a ‘one-size fits all’ solution which doesn’t give the desired result. Our solution uses a data-driven and personalized approach at scale which is unique and cost-effective.

ThinkZone is directly impacting 5193 children, 401 women educators and 10000 parents in 584 villages present in 4 districts of Odisha(Low-income group state), India.

Our next year goal is to directly impact 10000 children through quality education programs and also up-skill and provide livelihood opportunities to 1000 women from under-resourced communities. We are also on track to reach out to 20000 parents with our home-based education programs in the next one year. These 3 goals would be achieved through our existing B2B partnerships with both private and public players of the ecosystem.

ThinkZone's aim in the next five years to positively impact the learning outcomes of 1 million children and parents and also provide opportunities to 100 thousand women. This will be achieved by formally partnering with multiple state governments of India and along with large NGOs and social enterprises. 

Our 360 degree engagement model and its technology platform has led to significant increase in the learning outcomes of children. Apart from the technology has led to development of 21st century skills, communication and subject-matter knowledge skills of educators/women. We have also seen educators spending more time on the mobile application which has led to they using innovative teaching methods in their classrooms. More parents are likely to engage in their child's learning after going through our voice and SMS-based learning modules. Below is our impact scorecard:

Our next year goal is to directly impact 10000 children through quality education programs and also up-skill and provide livelihood opportunities to 1000 women from under-resourced communities. We are also on track to reach out to 20000 parents with our home-based education programs in the next one year. These 3 goals would be achieved through our existing B2B partnerships with both private and public players of the ecosystem.

ThinkZone aim in the next five years to positively impact the learning outcomes of 1 million children and parents and also provide opportunities to 100 thousand women. This will be achieved by formally partnering with multiple state governments of India and along with large NGOs and social enterprises. 

Some of potential barriers:

1. Resource Planning (Organizational & Financial) - In innovative projects, one evident risk that could come up is improper work plan in terms of inadequate resource allocation.
2. Policy, and Regulatory risks (Contextual and Partnership Related) – Partnering and executing our work with multiple public stakeholders could lead to not been able to correctly identify the multiple layers in the public system and the associated policies/schemes related to each one of them. 
3. Communication & Training (Operational) – In innovative projects, right channel of communication and appropriate training for stakeholders, team members and end-users if not properly formulated and executed can lead to the project not having the desired results as planned.

1. Resource planning: Fast-track work planning & implementation help mitigate the risks associated with resource allocation. Identifying budget issues early in the design process especially in technology and content development helps is thorough cost estimates. Also, formal documentation of the responsibilities of team members and what work needs to be outsourced helps in proper work planning.
2. Policy and Regulatory: Stakeholder Involvement via clear documented specifications is to be effectively communicated before & constantly during multiple work phases. Having single point of contact for respective stakeholders & continuously liaising and involving them will lead to successful on-ground implementation.
3. Communication & Training: Developing & supporting organization-wide edification for soft skills & technical expertise would help team members to develop proficiency in specific work areas. Effective communication strategy for delivering right kind of information at right time to right audience through right channel is to be developed and executed as & when the multiple activities start getting implemented on-ground.

Below are some of the partners who have been supporting ThinkZone's work:

ThinkZone implements a B2B2C model by directly reaching out to end-users via formal financial partnerships with corporates, public entities, government, non-profits and social enterprises. 

The formal partnerships include ThinkZone implementing the entire program or licensing a particular part of our entire program offering like technology, content and training modules.

ThinkZone’s plan to financial sustainability is to implement our programs in partnerships with public and private players. We have started doing the same since 2019 and our sustainability goal for the next 3 years is to build out more earned income strategies through corporate engagement programs and reduce our dependence on grants to 10-20% of our entire incoming revenues. We also want to have innovative financing models like social impact bonds.

ThinkZone has raised 100k USD in convertible debt and equity from GMC & Villgro(INVENT) in 2017 & 2018. Apart from that ThinkZone has also raised 130k USD in grants from different public and private entities between 2017-2020. Some of them are BPCL, Unltd India, US Distribution Inc.,Learning Equality, NSRCEL-IIM Bangalore and Department of MSME, Govt. of Odisha.

ThinkZone generates revenues by partnering with government, corporates and social organzations. In the last 12 months, ThinkZone's revenues have been 81k USD.  

ThinkZone is looking to raise an additional 800,000 USD in grants by 2022 to specifically work on specific strategic initiatives like enhancing the existing technology platform, training automation and developing advanced content in multiple vernacular languages.

The operating budget for 2020 is around 210,000 USD. The different heads and the approximate allocation of the budget has been mentioned below:

1. Program Design & Planning - 8%
2. Communication & Outreach - 7%
3. Tech R&D - 30%
4. Content R&D - 10%
5. Training & Capacity Development - 10%
6. Corporate Overheads(HR Costs) - 20%
7. On-ground operational expenses - 15% 

The Elevator Prize will help me get connected to fellow stakeholders who are striving to build a sustainable society. It will also provide me with a structured opportunity to be exposed to the challenges involved in scaling up enterprises. ThinkZone will get great insights from the deep knowledge of the unique challenges faced by people working in the social impact domain. I really want to a part of this platform where knowledge can be shared towards building a more inclusive eco-system for sustainable social impact startups. 

Being a leader of a social start-up and striving continuously to make it successful, the platform will give me a chance to meet with established sector experts who can guide me in taking my enterprise to the next level. Apart from this, the networking opportunities will help me build partnerships for my enterprise, which will help me in accelerating my work thereby multiplying our organization's social impact on ground.

In short, the community will offer me ever continuing intellectual capital which I will be taking back to improve my enterprise. The financial support will help me to work on specific organizational targets, which will lead to greater social impact. 

ThinkZone would want to partner with organizations who could support us to further our inclusive technology innovation in under-resourced communities.

The partnerships/support ranges from mentorship and funding support to enhance our technology as well as support in marketing and communications so that we are able to reach out to larger audience.

Apart from that ThinkZone would like to get support in terms of implementing our on-ground model(service distribution) in effective manner by forging out partnerships.

As we scale our model we also want to have an independent 3rd party evaluation of our work from leading experts.

Some of the organizations that we would like to partner with are:

1. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

2. The Rockefeller Foundation

3. Dell

4. Google.org

5. US Aid - DIV

6. Children's Investment Fund Foundation - CIFF

7. Michal and Susan Dell Foundation

8. Atlassian Foundation

9. Vodafone Americas Foundation 

10. Morgridge Family Foundation 

11. Dubai Cares

12. MIT Solve Team, Faculty and the overall MIT’s innovation ecosystem (For Knowledge Support)

13. JPal, Indsight etc (Leading experts who can support us in doing an independent evaluation)

These organization apart from financial support can also help ThinkZone tap into their existing networks of partners and other like-minded organizations.