Pass Karado: A Startup that Works on a "Everyone Must Pass" Philosophy

Student life and exams pretty much go hand in hand. Preparing for one’s exams is probably the hardest and most annoying part for most students. And, when it comes to a point where you realize you don’t really score whether or not you’ve worked your you-know-what off, you tend to start waving that white flag; you look around, hoping for a miracle and cry, “Bas, Pass karado yaar!”Well, whether or not someone has heard you this far, Pass Karado is here to do just that!

Pass Karado works on the belief that knowledge must be shared. Pass Karado is an open forum where anyone can upload and download academic material. The website primarily focuses on reducing information asymmetry and commercialization prevalent in the Indian Education System, especially in Universities, Colleges and Examinations. Pass Karado also covers Company Reviews, Internship Reviews, winners’ psychology and highlights upcoming conferences in India.

The Idea

What started off as a blog on the 18^th of Novemeber 2011 culminated into a fully fledged platform for sharing academic material on the 23^rd of March 2012 in the form of PassKarado.

“It was exam time (end term exam) and we were in the 7^th semester of our engineering. We had prepared thoroughly for our upcoming exam. The next day we went to give the exam but strangely we were unable to answer a single question. After the exam we found out that the paper was almost the same as that of the previous year and the students who prepared according to the previous years’ question papers were able to attempt the whole paper. We realized that there was a lot of information asymmetry. That day we decided that from the next time in MNIT, no such case will happen. From the next time in MNIT, there has to be no information asymmetry. From the next time in MNIT, you will be judged only by your technical knowledge,” says Manu Jain, core team member at Pass Karado.

The Execution

Passkarado.com covers the following areas of information sharing:

1. Academic Material: Pass Karado has covered academic material from over 150 colleges in Rajasthan, including notes of students and question papers of MNIT, RTU, and that of RPSC 3rd Grade Teachers Exam (which they claim has never been available on the internet before).

2. Company Reviews: They have a section where employees of various companies write reviews about the pay structure, work culture, opportunities, etc. available at their respective companies; the kind of information that student consider very valuable from a job and placement point of view.

3. Internship Reviews: They also have a section where students write reviews of the companies/institutes they have interned at, explaining the procedure for applying, the stipend, the accommodation available, etc.

4. Information on Upcoming Conferences

5. Winners Psychology: “It is said that rather than doing different things, winners always do the things differently. We created a section where we invite toppers of various exams to write their winning strategy, so that it may help the upcoming aspirants,” says Manu.

6. College and branch reviews from NIT and RTU to help students solve their counselling woes.

The Team

The 7 member team consists of Manu Jain, Pranay Agarwal, Devendra Sharma, Ayush Jain, Mukesh Kumar, Suprabhat Sen, Ankit Gupta, all of who have just passed out of MNIT Jaipur.

• Within a span of 3 months, Pass Karado has more than 2500 registered users with an average 2000 page visits per day.
• Over 2000 question papers of MNIT and RTU have been shared on their website
• They have gained media attention from Dainik Bhaskar, Rajasthan Patrika, Khabar Bharti and TOI.
• Pass Karado was highlighted as an innovative and buzzing startup in the Newsletter by Entrepreneurship Development Cell, MNIT Jaipur

Future Plans

Pass Karado’s future efforts are going to further build on their tag line of “Sharing Knowledge”. They plan to have a central library where engineering students will be able to find seminar and training/internship reports and presentations. “Our next short term target is to cover academic material of SRM university. We will also be focusing on Writer’s desk where any student can come and teach a topic to his fellow-mates or juniors by writing an article or making a video/audio of it,” concludes Manu, looking forward to a positive future.

All the best guys! :)

More on Pass Karado here.