These startups are making the world a better place for your little ones
Various countries celebrate Children’s Day on different dates. In India, November 14 is celebrated as Children’s Day to mark the birth anniversary of India’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru due to his affection for kids.
Children are said to be the future and backbone of any country. At a time when they are becoming screen addicts by spending more time in front of computers and mobile phones, preventing them from viewing inappropriate content is also important. From activity-based learning to engaging kids to get their basics right in mathematics, a number of startups are helping kids to learn and grow better.
This Children’s day, YourStory lists six kid-friendly startups that are helping children learn the fun way.
Magic Crate
Bengaluru-based edtech startup Magic Crate offers activity-based learning for children and enables parents to engage them in fun and educating ways. Founded by Viswanathan R and Karthik Lakshman in January 2015, Magic Crate aims to make learning fun and helps parents balance between engaging their toddlers productively at home and while working.
The startup caters to children up to eight years of age and offers three-, six- and 12-month subscription plans. Each month, the team ships crates with three to four fun activities based on arts, science, role play and games, and storybooks. Kids are rewarded with toys and artefacts for completing each activity. Each crate costs around Rs 500 per month.
The company claims to build important skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving and creativity, among children. The startup also supplies its products to schools that have tied up with the platform.
Hippocampus Learning Centres
Bengaluru-based Hippocampus Learning Centres (HLC) was founded in 2011 with the aim to open pre-primary schools in Tier-IV towns. Founded by Umesh Malhotra, the company runs up to 300 primary school centres with 700 teachers in Karnataka alone.
HCL claims to benefit over 11,000 students. The startup recruits, trains and manages a network of teachers who provide education to students in rented village centres and charge a minimum monthly fee (Rs 3,000 per year) to educate them on international standards.
In an earlier conversation with YourStory, the founder said that by 2020, the startup plans to bring preschool education to as many students in India as the population of Finland, and at one percent of its cost - the founder calls this the ‘Mission Finland’.
D'chica
D’chica was founded by Vani Chugh and Richa Kapila in June 2014. The startup produces quality kids' apparel at affordable prices. The brand offers products in categories such as footwear, apparel, hair accessories and jewellery that are available across ecommerce platforms, including Firstcry, Amazon and Jabong.
Most of its products are handcrafted and a team works under the close supervision of the co-founders. The company has three offices in Delhi, and one in Mumbai.
TruMath
Most people dread mathematics as students. To solve this problem, interactive learning platform TruMath helps students from Class VIII to X get their mathematics basics right and helps them prepare better for competitive exams. The platform was founded by educator Sachin Gulati in 2016 after he realised the foundation of students to be weak in the subject.
The interactive platform is available both in website and application format and offers classes of up to 50 minutes on mathematics for four to five days a week. Besides tutoring, the platform also provides tests, questions and clarifies doubts of each student. Priced at Rs 5,999 a year, the platform also has an application for parents to track their children’s progress.
Presently, the platform has around 170 paid students and more than 2,000 subscribers.
Smartivity
Founded by Tushar A Amin, Ashwini Kumar, Apoorv Gupta and Rajat Jain in 2015, Smartivity designs and sell toys based on concepts such as IoT, robotics and artificial intelligence. The Delhi-based startup is looking to fill the gap in early STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education in India.
The startup is dedicated to designing, producing and selling innovative STEM and art-based educational activities and toys. The company delivers smart learning toys to children between ages three and 14. Its products include do-it-yourself (DIY) kits, toys and activities that involve technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, robotics and IoT, thus making learning playful and fun.
Smartivity’s toys are available in up to 800 stores across the country, including large chains like Hamleys, Landmark and Crossword.
The Young Chronicle
Founded by Ritika Singh and Varun Mishraa in October 2016, The Young Chronicle is an Android-based newspaper application for children.
The Young Chronicle contains newspapers for children between Classes I and VII and offers articles across seven different reading levels. Each paper has news, stories and activities that are suitable for each age group. The content is written by mothers who have left their lucrative jobs to take care of their kids. The idea behind the platform is to provide relevant and ‘safe’ information to children.
As of last year, the application had more than 1,100 organic downloads and almost 100 students visited their app regularly. The startup also produces a printed paper, available in seven different reading levels, that is released every fortnight and circulated across the country.
