Hindustan Times (Lucknow)

Facebook decides to nurture IIIT-A alumni’s start-up

- K Sandeep Kumar

An educationa­l mobile app developed by former students of IIIT-A has been lapped up by Facebook and its partners.

The social networking site has chosen the IIIT-A alumni’s app Knudge.me under its bootstrap track programme (fbstart) to promote the start-up (Knudge.me) and provide it services and credits worth $40,000 to help it find global takers.

The Facebook partners that will support Knudge.me include giants like Amazon, UserTestin­g, Dropbox and MailChimp.

The selection means that Knudge.me will get an opportunit­y to connect with Facebook team and get enrolled in its community of global start-ups. Knudge.me is a science-based app that aims to make learning easy and interestin­g through its notificati­on-based platform.

“It works on an algorithm developed using techniques like adaptive and spaced learning. It offers a number of English and Mathematic­al skill-developmen­t courses such as vocabulary sections, English idioms, phrasal verbs, confusing words and tips and tricks of mathematic­s,” said Udit Jain, 26-year-old co-founder of Knudge.me, an IIIT-A alumnus.

He founded the start-up with Zunaid Ahmed, a BTech (IT) 2013 pass out from IIIT-Allahabad, and Pushp Raj Saurabh, a graduate from Thapar University, Patiala.

“Unlike most education apps in Indian market, which provide an alternativ­e to classroom coaching, our focus is on comprehens­ive learning. Knudge.me not only caters to distracted learners but also provides an effective medium of learning for the curious ones,” said Zunaid, who belongs to Dehradun.

He said the Android app, launched four months back, had

We are delighted at the achievemen­t of our alumni Udit Jain and Zunaid Ahmed and believe the stress laid by IIIT-A on coding has played a big role in their success. We are confident they will continue to touch new highs GC NANDI, acting director, IIIT-A

25,000 downloads and was adding 500 new users daily. “We are expecting five lakh users within next five months,” he added.

 ?? HT PHOTO ?? (Left to right) Pushp Raj Saurabh, Udit Jain and Zunaid Ahmed say the app aims at making learning easy and interestin­g.
HT PHOTO (Left to right) Pushp Raj Saurabh, Udit Jain and Zunaid Ahmed say the app aims at making learning easy and interestin­g.

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