In Conversation With, Chandrahas Panigrahi, Co-founder And CEO, Edukemy
Chandrahas Panigrahi stands distinguished among the consumer section of IT. He has an experience of over 20+ years in setting up new businesses, reviving businesses and in managing high growth categories. He specializes in managing P&L and budgets, people management, developing and executing business strartegies, retail and distribution.
1.Brief us about your business model- how did the idea come to a start?
Edukemy is India’s first test prep EdTech company in the non-STEM segment based on progressive evaluation techniques. It was founded by Mr Chandrahas Panigrahi, Co-founder and CEO, Mr Shabbir A Bashir, Co-founder and CAO and Mr Deb Tripathi Co-founder and CTO in April 2020. At Edukemy, we aim to offer quality education. With cumulative mentoring experience of more than 70 years of teaching and mentoring students, we strive every day, with every single student, to make the difference.
Our priority is to always scale the learning experience for every student and offer an insightful and enriching environment. The focus is on personalization of education by providing live, interactive, immersive and democratized education in Tier2 and 3 cities.
2.With the changing landscape of Ed-tech, how did Edukemy succeed in creating a strong user base for itself?
At Edukemy, we are building a comprehensive platform keeping in mind every student needs a personal learning experience. Our focus is on enhancing existing technology, we focus on handwritten notes to personalize the learning experience. We want to make a difference to a student who wishes to make a career in the civil service. We also do our bit for society by encouraging various programs for EWS students. Apart from this, we also have special programs for girls apart from building a unique test prep platform to encourage participation in competitive exams. We have also developed post class commune moderated by our faculty, where students can interact amongst themselves. Frequent webinars are also conducted so that students learn firsthand from the experts.
3.What are the company's key focus areas in the Ed-tech space?
As mentioned above, our priority has always been scaling the learning experience for every individual and offer an insightful and enriching environment for students. The focus lies on personalization of education by providing live, interactive, immersive and democratized education in Tier2 and 3 cities.
4.What challenges are you facing in running the business?
Our platform relies solely on online education, so technology is a key component in ensuring business continuity. We are now working towards scaling the learning experience from 1.0 to 2.0 to redefine the EdTech experience. We are aware India is still evolving in terms of technology and internet penetration is lacking in rural areas. It is a challenge and is being resolved to some extent as technology has become the backbone of our daily lives. The NON – STEM segment is a selective and niche segment and hence it poses a potential challenge to raise capital.
5.Throw some light on the category-specific cutting-edge technology tool used by Edukemy to automate and scale evaluation.
Our evaluation process is a combination of curated processes as we aim to standardize the evaluation process and criteria to develop a student’s potential to score better with a personalized scorecard to evaluate their performance. We are striving to solve the core problem of students by developing a superior grading system for educational tools that supports deeper learning and a more sophisticated data analysis. In the next wave of EdTech, academia should be equally involved. It should be a mix of tech and academics.
6.How is the company working towards digital education/ training for competitive exams?
We are delivering online live courses with doubt-solving via live, interactive and immersive classes. We have streamlined our functionality and reach mainly focusing on six key steps mentioned below:
7.How are you different from the existing competitors in the Ed-tech sector?
Edukemy’s core differentiator is competitive pricing, tech-based evaluation, focus on UPSC and PSC exams and live and interactive assisted teaching. We simplify the content for K12+ with cutting edge evaluation technology. Our Vertical versus Horizontal approach helps us curate processes and solutions for the category. We are hyper-focused on Govt Test Prep and are platform enablers for content and teacher as a combined solution versus star teacher or tech platform methodology. We also have a Modular one size fits all approach and the founding team has deep domain expertise.
8.Showing a steep growth in revenue within a short time since its inception, how does the company plan to propel its growth further?
Started in April 2020, Edukemy has witnessed one of the fastest tractions in the Ed Tech space. We have an active student base of more than 1 lakh aspirants who take up government / UPSC exams out of which we have enrolled 3500+ students for Edukemy’s paid classes. Our revenue has grown multifold in a short span of six months which encourages us to do better and revolutionize the Test prep education system.
9.According to you, what are the essentials of a digital learning platform for students. How far has Edukemy been able to cater to these in the Ed-tech space?
A digital learning platform should effectively offer an array of opportunities to grow and learn. At Edukemy, we ensure these requirements are met effectively with live, immersive, and interactive classes. Apart from this we also offer pre-class, in-class and post-class solution which is monitored by our faculty so that students get a platform for discussion amongst their peers. We are now working towards scaling the learning experience from 1.0 to 2.0 to redefine the EdTech experience.
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