The education sector in India is a never-ending sphere, and is currently growing at a brisk pace. The widening/broadening of courses and changing trends have forced students and their parents to stretch themselves to the limit. Although educational institutions have taken sincere efforts in improving the quality of education, the imbalance of the student-teacher ratio is a major hindrance to meet the objective of imparting quality education. Independent researchers suggest that more than thirty-five percent of India’s 1.2 billion populations is presently under the age of fifteen. Providing adequate teachers stands to be the biggest and the most ignored issues in the country’s education system today.
Over the last few years, with the advent of technology and innovations, EdTech are becoming viable options to revive the education sector. It has become a key sector for investment and entrepreneurs are not shying away from the opportunity. GuruQ is one such online platform, which promises to make a significant contribution towards the Indian education system. GuruQ is designed to address the need for a single, simplified and cohesive ed-tech solution that caters both online and offline tutoring. It’s a digital platform where tutors can connect and teach students; earning recognition, whereas the student gets quality teachers who can deliver as per/according to the needs of the students. The ultimate objective is to bring convenience and ease into the process of selecting tutors. With a fusion of new age methodologies and technology, GuruQ has a vision to build a 21st century model for education.
The Leading Light of GuruQ
Minal Anand, a modern independent woman started GuruQ with an aim to improve the level of education, which in turn drove her to explore the ed-tech sector. A graduate in Business Administration from Boston University, she is the CEO and Founder of GuruQ. Prior to GuruQ, she has worked with prominent multinational companies like Franklin Templeton, Citigroup and HPL Additives. Working on several eclectic assignments and gaining experience in the areas of financial planning, fund-raising, organizational design and structuring, and people management gave a major push to Minal’s innovative thought process. Minal witnessed a huge disconnect between the Indian students and their counterparts across the world. The absence of innovative teaching methodologies cemented her quest for doing something constructive for the existing education sector.
An Inspirational Journey
GuruQ is the pioneer in providing quality-certified and user-rated tutors. Revolutionizing the home schooling concept, GuruQ equips tutors with the latest teaching methodologies and keeps them updated with international trends and techniques in contributing to better learning. Founded in 2016, this digital platform was created with a mission to revamp the EdTech sector and to bring significant improvements in the overall process. As an advisory partner, KPMG provided valuable insight of the sector along with the need-gaps and opportunities available. The trends and analyses backed by market research assisted GuruQ to showcase themselves as the facilitators for tutors in providing their expertise, and as enabler for the students to get the right tutors. It further helped to establish themselves as a significant player in this sector and play a dominant role in standardizing the benchmarks, ensuring quality services and be an inspiration for other entities in the sector.
Inspite of the ‘home-work’ and strategies, the initial journey was not smooth; however GuruQ took every challenge as an opportunity to perform better. The valuable lessons assisted them to strengthen their path of revival. Once they had the right digital infrastructure backed up by streamlined operational processes, the performance trajectory improved steadily. In the present scenario, GuruQ have evolved into a matured organization and are in the process of raising the next round of funding for the expansion of their business.
Processes which make the Difference
Learner-centric approach, tech-powered platform, quality driven service, unmatched convenience, and tutor oriented database are the components of this unique platform. Incorporating best standard practices and embracing cutting-edge technologies, GuruQ manages to align proficient tutors with students. The core concept of GuruQ is to connect students and their parents with the most suitable tutor, and assist tutors in providing students as per their feasibility, location and budget. A customizable dashboard is available for students and tutors to input their specific needs. Tutors are selected and cross checked on parameters like their ratings, reviews, their availability and tuition fees. The biggest plus is that this platform has bought in more reliability and transparency to the process. Parents, students and teachers find it a lot easier and convenient to interact and find the best option that fulfills their needs.
Once the tutor is fixed/selected, a student has the option to personalize the study structure. They can select the mode – online or offline, individual or group along with location and time of their choice. Additionally, they can change their modes and learning type depending upon urgency and requirement like exams, doubts or revisions to name a few. This platform allows parents to monitor the performance of their child through checking assessment results, taking feedback from tutors and even discuss the strategy to enhance the progress of their kids. The idea behind this concept is to enable quality learning provided through a digital platform. GuruQ plans to add innovative features in the platform which can assist students to be in total control of their learning. This secure platform is revolutionizing the tutor market and the growing capabilities are the perfect answer to the ever-growing ed-tech industry. GuruQ asserts that a quote by popular American entrepreneur, John Rohn – “Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action” describes their venture very well.
Client Relationship
For GuruQ, every client plays a key role in improvising the digital platform by their reviews and feedback. In their endeavor to provide the best services, staying in touch with the clients assists them to enhance the overall experience. The features on the application highlight the empathy and the understanding of the diverse expectations of the clients. As a responsible organization GuruQ is actively involved in promoting various social welfare initiatives wherein they receive direct and spontaneous reviews from the beneficiaries. The initiative includes –
‘GuruQGyaan’ – free behavior and functional skills training for students
‘Knowledge Pyramid’ – book donations for the under privileged
‘Hum Badlenge India’ – video contest on how children can make better India
‘CRY Cyclothon’ – Raised funds for child development
The positive response received from the initiatives has given them the motivation to go beyond the limits to embrace all those who really deserve to learn and grow.
Analyzing the Key Challenges
While GuruQ faced challenges in various areas like processes, technology, design, people and management, integrating the internal systems and increasing operational efficiency has resulted in creating a world-class ed-tech platform. Hiring employees, media content, content development, and fixing the promotional strategies are some of the other common issues faced in the ed-tech industry. Exploring and experimenting different business ideas, the journey of GuruQ is just splendid. Within three months of launching the platform, they started revamping the entire digital infrastructure including the website and dashboard to make it even more user friendly.
Attributes to Success
GuruQ understands the dynamics of the ed-tech sector. The idea to create a business blueprint after a comprehensive market analysis assisted GuruQ to identify the real issues faced by the target audience. Taking clue from the blueprint, they came up with twenty-one distinct and game changing features for students, tutors and parents. As a solution provider entity, it ensured an easy, effective and efficient learning platform for everyone. GuruQ firmly believes that it’s the vigor and commitment of the people that drives a company to success. Employees, partner companies, vendors, advisors and stakeholders are the various factors which have helped to strengthen and motivate GuruQ to attain new heights.
Future Prospective
GuruQ holds a positive outlook of the future. It believes in creating an employee-centric environment as it values the pivotal role played by the employees in its organization. It invests time and takes sincere efforts to create employees who will be an asset to the business. With such a pragmatic road-map, GuruQ is committed to work in the area of imparting quality education for everyone in India.
Source :-The 18 Innovative Startups to Watch in 2018
GuruQ: Transforming the Ed -Tech Sector by Innovative Practices
