Youth Driven!

A hunger to excel, coupled with tech savviness of new generation of students, is leading to the rapid increase in uptake of online courses.

The timing for the growth of education apps and eplatforms couldn’t have gotten better. All the right ingredients—a wide array of job opportunities, availability of digitized content, proliferation of smart phones and 3G networks, and above all, a generation that is sure of its goals and has the confidence to reach there—are much in place.

As <____>, Aakash, points out, its target segment comprises students in age bracket of 12 to 20, which is tech savvy and has been an early adopter of smartphones and mobile internet. He notes that students are already pressed for time and it is difficult for them to squeeze time out for a web-based solution that works only on PCs. Since smartphones allow access on the go, it is relatively easy for students to accommodate a mobile-based solution in daily routine. Smartphones have the advantage of proximity and engagement, through push notifications, for example, which makes apps stickier than web based solutions, if designed and conceptualized appropriately, he emphasizes.

Sanjay Purohi, CEO and co-founder of iProf, says that the education sector is very conducive to the success of local apps. He says a greater acceptance of technology and release of some of the old values and doctrines that held back various sections of the society from education. These boundaries are dissolving and the local apps and platforms are helping in the process.

Funding is easy to come by, as has been demonstrated by investments in the recent. It’s another matter that not all players appear to be actively seeking funding. The key to growth in the segment is the content quality, along with a seamless delivery mechanism.