Two IITians start EduisFun, flipping classrooms via game-based learning
Powai-based venture EduisFun aims to make learning fun, easy and accessible to everyone via games. Founded by two ex-IITians, Praveen Tyagi (ex-IITD) and Jatin Solanki (ex-IITB), EduisFun is an adaptive platform which provides an enhanced gamified learning experience, and uses analytics for personal performance tracking.
One of the co-founders, Jatin Solanki (ex-IITB) says, “Today’s tech-savvy generation adapts quickly. Kids today might not know the names of the vegetables they eat but they know ‘Angry Birds’and ‘The Candy Crush Saga’. They may not carry handkerchiefs, but they’re very likely to own a five-inch, quad-core, 13MP Android phone replete with the best of apps and games. And when it comes to learning and education, classrooms and books, the existing modes of teaching have all lost their capability to retain interest levels.”
Bridging this wide gap, EduIsFun wishes to innovate an altogether unique mode of learning. Jatin believes that the education system needs a big change, both in terms of quality of content as well as mode of teaching. This led his team to attempt something new – teaching through games. Hence EduIsFun began.
Addressing multiple concerns, EduIsFun has sought out to change the teaching methodology by challenging the existing mode through:
- Learning by solving problems; against the existing idea of learning by reading
- Taking the approach that failing is just one step away from learning and success
- Taking extra care to deliver quality content for conceptual clarity
- Ensuring a cent-percent absorption of knowledge by adopting the concept of four-in-a-row,
EduIsFun aims to improve the current practice of promotion to next class by >33% marks. The team firmly believes in not leaving any loop-hole in imparting knowledge to the child, subsequently stating that if 33% is the pass percentage for a child, this allows 67% to be left un-grasped. This accumulates, resulting in a fundamentally weak student.
EduIsFun team and early days
Jatin Solanki is a serial entrepreneur. He has worked in the e-commerce and education sectors prior to EduIsFun. Praveen Tyagi has motivated the team’s rigorous efforts over the past 15 months, in order to develop educational games for standard 8th-10th NCERT covering all topics. A strong team of developers, designers, animators, and testers, they share a common dream: introducing a unique mode of teaching.
The education firm, IITians Pace came into a strategic alliance, and invested the seed round for EduIsFun. In addition, well-qualified faculty from IITians Pace have ensured delivery of quality content with specific focus on fundamentals and concepts.
EduIsFun has many game launches happening within the next two months; for one, a single-player game, called Knowledge Kombat, divided into multiple levels, comprising missions to save humankind from the animal kingdom by collecting knowledge lamps, upon which one achieves the highest honor, being a part of Super Brainiacs, which comes with multiple incentives like goodies and scholarships, is ready to launch.
Multi-player games incorporating the best of technology are in process of being made. “It is important to address the emotion of competition”, says Jatin. “Hence, we brainstormed a game that could create that as well.'
These games are comprehensive. They include Performance Meters that produce regular analytics on student performance. Additionally, voice-guided slides and videos are linked, so that the student can recapitulate the entire content when required. The app-based games developed by the EduisFun team have seen a good response so far. Jatin adds “A 500% improvement in concept clarity is observed in every student. Additionally, more than 90% students rate it five (on a scale of one-five) on the parameters of Interest Level, Concept Clarity and Knowledge Retention”
Education is a fast growing sector, and with increasing internet penetration and growing digitalisation, it is bound to expand. This tech-savvy generation adopts trends fast and hence, it is important we mend ways of teaching to suit generational changes. EduisFun is one of the startups to look out for in this space, in the near future.