We Are Planning Rapid Expansion In UK, Australia, New Zealand, And South East Asia: Sahil Sheth, Founder & CEO, LIDO Learning
What is the role of immersive and interactive content in the ed-tech age?
Traditionally, India’s education system measured success by the ability to memorise and reproduce, instead of applying in life what’s taught in the class. But in the last few years, educational technology has made our approach to education much more holistic and full-spectrum. We’re increasingly focusing on the student’s development as an individual, and their ability to translate education in school to success in life. From rote, we’re shifting to conceptual clarity as the metric for academic progress. Immersive content has been a key device for ed-tech platforms to deliver enhanced learning experiences, and enable students to make that progress. Immersive content helps edtech platforms substantially improve learning at the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural level. It allows students to gather hands-on experience while learning theory. Interactive content also empowers students to upskill faster by using trial and error, instead of indirect visualisation. Edtech is driven by data-based precise results, and immersive content has been one of the means to this end.
The art of designing and planning a curriculum that provides lifelong skills and lifelong learning?
Lido subject curriculums have been designed by academic experts from institutions like Duke, Stanford, Harvard, and IITs keeping the objective of retained learning in mind. Our subject curriculums use rich visuals and video content, collaborative prompts, and practice projects to deliver application-based learning. The lessons have been gamified for better and faster conceptual grasp, and each lesson starts with a relatable scenario to boost real-life skill acquisition. For instance, Lido’s 6th grade Maths curriculum asks students to picture themselves as travel agents to practise budgeting. Our curriculums bridge the gap between academic topics and their use in real life to ensure lifelong learning.
How do Lido Learning's educational programmes ensure an engaging and effective personalised learning experience for the students?
From enrollment to exit, every step of a Lido student’s learning journey is uniquely customised to fit their pace, needs, and goals. Our AI-led batching system ensures the most optimum learning environment for each child, by matching them with the most compatible tutor and same-level peers. As a Lido student, you are allotted homework and assigned quizzes, specifically customised to target your improvement areas. We motivate students by setting weekly goals, and using rewards and badges as incentives for meeting them. Both subject curriculum and library content use gamification for active, immersed learning. Lido also engages students by helping them achieve 360* growth with free workshops and events.
What are some of the unique service offerings by Lido Learning for students and parents?
24/7 progress monitoring, tutor support, on-demand one-on-one doubt-solving sessions and PTMs, a content library with 85k + videos & sample questions, free activity and hobby classes, workshops and leadership training workshops, one-on-one academic mentorship sessions, continuous rewards for class participation and achieving learning milestones… The list is long!
What is the road ahead for Lido Learning? Tell us about your further funding and expansion plans.
For the next couple of months, we will be focused on running the Lido Boot Camp for 2+ million students. Our expansion plans target both spreading to International geographies, and trickling down at the hyper local level back home. In 2021, Lido launched in multiple geographies abroad, including the USA, Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. We’ve started with our flagship Coding, but now plan to introduce Maths, Science, and English as well. Lido is also aiming for rapid expansion in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.
What are you expecting from the year 2022 for Lido Learning?
Our 5 most critical priorities starting January 2022 will be trickling Lido down to the hyper-local level, boosting student & parent engagement, growing our customer base within the territories we are in, lowering overall customer acquisition cost, and of course, enriching learning outcomes for our existing customers. We're currently working on the launch of the “Learn Project” which gamifies learning at every step of the way by linking mastery points to achieving positive outcomes. We will continue to strive for this with new engagement & retention initiatives across 2022. We also aim to expand our people & leadership team, and get more specialists on board to execute our vision for the new year.
Tell us something about Lido Learning's ACE program?
The ACE program is a result of our faith in Lido’s results-driven learning model. It’s essentially our money-back guarantee. As a part of the ACE program, Lido guarantees better exam results within 8 months of taking classes, or a refund of the course fees. Every child who enrolls with Lido automatically qualifies for the ACE program. In return, we ask for 3 indicators of commitment from the student - 80% minimum attendance, completion of 80% of homework, and 8 months of classes.
How game-based learning makes child smarter?
Game-based learning has taken the world of education by storm, and reasonably so. The list of its benefits is vast. It enhances cognitive capacity and improves conceptual knowledge by letting students interact with the concept or object they’re learning about. It leads to better retention as more neural pathways are created while learning through trial and error as opposed to simple memorisation. It promotes analytical skills by letting students probe, question, and experiment. It also enhances problem-solving skills, and collaborative thinking. Most importantly, it lets students have fun with learning by motivating them to achieve targets and compete with other peers.
Who is your target audience in India? `
Lido was born out of the founding team’s goal to make quality education accessible for every child in the country, and, eventually, the world. So, other than targeting the K-10 segment specifically, we don’t have any additional criteria for customer acquisition. Any child between the ages of 4 to 16, no matter what corner of India they’re from, is a part of Lido’s target audience.
How does innovation help Lido Learning achieve better growth results?
Innovation has been the driving force behind Lido’s rising success. Along with adopting cutting-edge technologies for effective learning, we use innovation to chart out the best journey and environment for every child. From Lido’s solid rewards system to our 24/7 Super Parent App, and from consistent revisions in subject curriculums to new initiatives for holistic learning, all that we offer at Lido is a product of innovation.
How Edtech platforms like Lido Learning are making quality education accessible to non-metro cities?
Access to quality, holistic education for tier 2 and tier 3 cities in India was earlier limited by factors like lack of infrastructure, resources, and learning material. But ed-tech is blurring geographical lines, and offering the same high quality education to different categories of students at the same reasonable pricing slabs. Because there’s no need to be physically present to access an ed-tech platform, additional costs like lodging, transportation etc are eliminated. Students from non-metro cities get the advantage of personalized learning, self-paced assessment, unlimited content libraries, and lecture recordings. Tier 2 and tier 3 students also get exposure to group discussions and peer collaboration in non-intimidating environments. E-learning is helping them develop academically, and personally, all without the need to leave their houses at all or invest large sums of money.
