Veda [Ingrails Pvt. Ltd.]

Our focus project, Veda, is a digital education solution for educational institutions that seek to/need to go online. Veda is a management information system and a digital learning platform that helps educational institutions operate online. Veda is available as an app on the App and Play stores. Moreover, it also has a web-browser based platform. 

Given the nature, and status of education in emerging nations, we built this product to ensure education is fair, equitable, accessible, and sustainable for all. 

The major problem we’re currently solving is the lack of digitization in schools in developing countries. This branches out to several problems like disruptions, time-management, teaching strategy development, etc. The idea is, that our product takes care of the mundane, and leaves educators with ample time to make necessary interventions since they aren’t busy punching numbers on a calculator, or looking for old data in registers consumed by the strain of time. Our product also focuses on data such as student/staff progress data, parent concerns, financial reports, etc., and its accessibility to educators for better decision-making. Moving forward, we hope to not only give educators workable data, but also custom, dedicated, and impactful strategies (a range of choices to select from) through the integration of AI.

Initially, our solution was supposed to be a communication system that helped all parties involved in schools/colleges be on the same page. We strongly believed that children needed guidance as we had seen examples of how easy it is for young ones, especially in rural areas, to fall prey to habits/situations that no child should be in. However, as we began pitching our solution to schools/colleges (in cities, as well as rural villages), we discovered that it was not only communication that these institutions were struggling with! There was so much more, and thus our product matured based on that feedback. Now, we’re trying to add more and beyond in terms of AI and strategy development capabilities. 

Having said that, our initial market consisted of over 87% of individuals who were/are not familiar with the technology. Thus, the ‘effect’, that is a lack of technical understanding, is being rectified through Digital literacy training where we’ve trained over 40,000 teachers. This is another significant work we do directly involving affected communities.

Our theory of change is basically this: save educators’ and students’ time on things that can be automated digitally, give them data, and provide them with ‘relatable’ strategies for intervention - that way you have a system that keeps evolving and finding ways to be the best version of itself. 

What we do is solve the educational sector’s immediate concerns, especially in developing countries, so that teachers and administrators can focus on ways to make education better. We also involve parents heavily with their children’s progress as we strongly believe that it matters a lot (particularly in the south-Asian context) based on our conversations with educators in the region. 

What all this does is that it makes life easy for teachers who can seek better teaching strategies (which we hope to start suggesting very soon). It saves time for administrators so they can look into finding ways to keep students happy and in a state of optimum development. And finally, it helps parents be in the loop with their children’s progress. All of this, we believe, will amount to a shift in the educational landscape towards the positive. There is no one level we want to see education reach. What we care about is that it keeps evolving and that teachers and educators change the way they look at data so that they begin actively deploying it into their strategies.

The two biggest channels of evidence we have are our renewal rate and user testimonials. Since we came into operation in 2016, our client retention rate has been 99%. Although, we haven’t yet established the direct impact our ‘necessity’ has on the quality of education. 

In terms of user testimonials. We conduct text analysis on our sales pitches and user feedback/testimonials. In that evaluation, we look for phrases/terms that can paint a clear picture of the before and after. Although more study is required, our primary findings suggest that the biggest benefit our clients have is that they are saving time which leaves them time to think about education and how to make it better.

Our current tracking variables include the number of active users on the platform which included students, teachers, administrators, and parents.

On top of that, we also track the number of IT jobs we create indirectly through our clients. 

We track referrals made by our current clients. It sits at 43% at this time which tells us that our product is doing a satisfactory job. 

In terms of our end goal, we only use text analysis from our user testimonials. We have refrained from asking users specific questions about the quality of education since that is a direct invitation for severe bias (since educators would probably not be truthful about the quality of education at their institution - which is bias again! But, we are working on figuring this out).

A digital solution for educational institutions in developing nations to ensure progress, fairness, innovation, and sustainability.

I believe we still need clarity in terms of identifying our end goal (which is not stagnation though). We have strong evidence that our product works in the present context. However, we still need to develop metrics that help us gauge the level of impact we have on the future of education. We know we’re saving educators time and effort, but we do not know what that saved time is being dedicated to. If it is not dedicated to education, what can we do to ensure that? We are looking for answers, and we need reinforcement for the same. 

I hope this project allows us to gauge our impact and divert our focus if necessary. Our long-term plan includes reaching 20,000 schools in Nepal, Brunei, Bangladesh, India, and Indonesia. Thus, to reach our goals, a cultural understanding is as important as the question of regional needs. This is another area that hosting a LEAP project would help us find tools/support for.