Shikhya Inititaive

World-Class Education For Forgotten Children of India.

Please find pitch in Video Format
Please find pitch in PPT Format

I started Shikhya in 2014 as a way to give back to my community. I grew up in a small village in Eastern India, so I know how difficult it can be for these kids.

Problem:

Schools aren’t very good. 50% of grade 5 students can’t read at the second-grade level, and 70% of grade 3 students can’t do simple subtraction. The data are taken from ASER report 2017.

Qualified teachers are hard to find in rural areas. The internet is slow if available at all. Even electricity can be inconsistent. Worst of all, these children need to be taught in their native language where great content is hard to find for Grade 1-10.

For these kids to succeed, we needed to find a solution that could answer all of these challenges in a clear, inexpensive and expandable way.

So that’s what we did at Shikhya.

Solution:

The Shikhya system is a big idea in a small package.

First, we developed the platform, a hardware and a software solution that can function without the internet or even continuous electricity. Students simply connect via wi-fi to any available device and learn at their own pace. We call it personalized education in the last mile.

Second, we have created comprehensive Math, Science, and Humanities e-learning content, producing thousands of video lectures along with interactive assessments, all in the local language, and all according to the syllabus as mandated by the local school board. We call it massive open online course for the kids who need most.

Third, With a dedicated team of facilitators helping to run the program, whether, in orphanages or underserved communities, the Shikhya system is expanding and changing young lives all across the entire state of Odisha. We call it ed-entrepreneurship at scale.

Impact:

All across India both in urban and rural communities, thousands of children still live in the shadows. Born into communities where education is poor, and life is hard, few opportunities exist. But at Shikhya, we’re working hard to change that.

Where the needs are greatest, we’re planting Shikhya Learning Centers welcoming young children, offering much-needed tuition services, in their native language, through our customized e-learning platform.

Today, we are running 54 Shikhya learning centers catering to 3000+ students.

We are working on some of the darkest streets, for some of the most vulnerable children, bringing the light of hope.  Question by question, one child at a time, the future of our kids is looking brighter and brighter.

The likes of Khan Academy exists for a long time. However, in the current form, MOOCs failed to address the need of my kids in my village where they do not understand English, electricity still a privilege.

We offer an integrated solution.

1) Creating contextualized content as per local requirement

2) We are solving last-mile content delivery with our platform.

3) We are building a network of a franchise which runs the program and earns a living.

We believe technology can be an essential tool to overcome various challenges faced in remote regions to access quality learning material.

In rural India, we do not have qualified teachers who can teach in school. There is no monitoring and once a year assessment.

Instead of waiting for the quality teacher, we employ the idea of massive open online courses to a village context.

We build an affordable solution using low-cost hardware powered by a battery. Today, we can give same learning experience as you get on any leading MOOCs platform but with no Internet and little electricity.

With technology, we bring consistency and scale in delivering the lectures to those kids where the need is the most.

At this time we are laser-focused on implementation in Odisha where we
have Grade 1-10 content in Odia (a language spoken by 42M), a platform, and a proven track record of success.

Our model is repeatable and we wish to multiply our reach to as many Odia
kids as possible. We are exploring partnerships with Corporate CSR
programs, NGOs, Government schools, and low cost private schools.

We plan to reach 1000 Shikhya Learning centers catering to 100,000 students by end of July 2019.

First my village, then my state, then my country and one day the world. Our approach is bottom up and hard work.

I went to change my village, but in fact, my villagers changed me.

In next three years, I am looking to repeat the model in three Indian vernacular regions (Hindi, Marathi, Bengali). Hoping to reach a million kids in India.

I started my first learning center in my village and learned a couple of things. Here is the background story.  Now we have a company and a team.

Our solution will be deployed in rural areas and urban slums. Here is a schematic diagram of our deployment. Students come to a place that can accommodate 40-50 at a time. 

The key to implementation is a facilitator who is quite knowledgeable about local students and enjoys a certain level of trust in community. 

• provides a safe environment for learning. 
• Takes care of the technology (tablets and a set up box). Troubleshoots technical issues and reports outages.
• Conduct community outreach programs.
• Upload student usage data every week using a mobile App.

We are currently running our supplemental programs at 52 centers
catering to 3000+ students in Odisha (mostly in the undeserved
community). They have enrolled in 6867 different courses and answered 1.8Million exercises in last one year. We have seen atleast 22% increase in math marks in final Grade 10 exam.

Apart from creating technology, vernacular contents, we are incredibly proud of our network of ed-entrepreneurs like Amita Samal who earns a living with Shikhya and changing lives of many others.

Here is 3 years projection:

July 2018 :

1. Odia Grade 1-10 Content, 54 Centers, 2700b Students

July 2019: 

1. Odia Grade 1 -10 Content, 200 Centers, 10,000 Students
2. Odia Grade 11-12 Content, 50 Centers, 2500 Stduents

July 2020: 

1. Odia Grade 1 -10 Content, 400 Centers, 20,000 Students
2. Odia Grade 11-12 Content, 200 Centers, 10,000 Students
3. Hindi Grade 1-10 Content,  100 Centers,  5000 Students
4. Hindi Grade 11-12 Content, 100 Centers,  5000 Students

From 2020 onwards, we should in track to expand to other 15 vernacular languages.

I have 20 years of experience in building scalable software system at Oracle. I created the version 1 of Shikhya platform along with a freelance developer. The current system is powering all our content delivery and offline centers. My co-founder is a teacher who has created Grade 1 to 10 Math lessons.  Between two of us, we have built the product which is used at 54 learning centers in an Indian state. Our action speaks louder than words. People started to trust us by seeing our impact. We can attract the best local talents from MBA schools and Teaching schools. 

We charge 100 USD per month per center for Grade 1-10 content. On an average, we cater to around 50 students. The cost per student for Grade 1 -10 comes to 2 USD.   

In Year 2019, we are planning to add Grade 11-12 content with Test Prep material for IIT-JEE in Odia. We intend to charge 30 USD per month per student. The total revenue from center per annum is 18,000 USD.

In Year 2020, we are planning to add Grade 1-10 content in Hindi and Test prep material.

Here is 3 years projection:

July 2018 :

1. Odia Grade 1-10 Content, 54 Centers, 64,800 USD per Annum

July 2019: 

1. Odia Grade 1 -10 Content, 200 Centers, 240,000 USD per Annum
2. Odia Grade 11-12 Content, 50 Centers, 900,000 USD per Annum

July 2020: 

1. Odia Grade 1 -10 Content, 400 Centers, 480,000 USD per Annum
2. Odia Grade 11-12 Content, 200 Centers, 3600,000 USD per Annum
3. Hindi Grade 1-10 Content,  100 Centers, 120,000    USD per Annum
4. Hindi Grade 11-12 Content, 100 Centers, 1800,000 USD per Annum

From 2020 onwards, we should in track to expand to other 15 vernacular languages.

We need a massive scale while working for BOP customers. We can scale on our own in the state of Odisha in Eastern India. However, We do have a global aspiration to reach out to other parts of the world with a variant of the product. For this we need 

    1)  Access to the global talent pool and solve network will help.

    2) The technology we have built can be optimized further with the help of solve community. 

    3) We like to be validated/questioned by a global community on the efficacy of our intervention.

On our own we built version 1 of our product ( Grade appropriate Content and technology platform). We have some track record of success in implementing in different regions. We need to move fast in implementation and currently we do not have budget to spend on marketing. We need funding to support our marketing and operational cost for an year.