Why investing in education infrastructure matters for learning, decodes Teachmint’s Mihir Gupta at TechSparks 2021

Online education is the new normal and is likely going to continue for the foreseeable future. However, a few critical success factors need to be considered for edtech to prosper.

These include digital infrastructure, online content material and exams, teachers’ training, to name a few. Education infrastructure startup Teachmint caters to the end-to-end infrastructure needs of educators; from kindergarten to high school, and from edtechs to universities.

Indian edtech startups have attracted a total investment of $2.2 billion in 2020, according to Indian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (IVCA) and PGA Labs data. At YourStory's flagship startup-tech conference, TechSparks 2021, Mihir Gupta, Co-founder and CEO, Teachmint, decoded the edtech infra and the startup’s contribution to the subsector.

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How digitisation is shaping education

“The seed of thought behind forming Teachmint was planted a year back when we saw many of our teachers struggling while conducting classes online, especially around remote areas. We realised the dearth of product innovation around the concept of teaching digitisation. That’s the thought that triggered the formation of Teachmint,” Mihir recalled.

Teachmint aimed at a universal application that any teacher, irrespective of the area, can start digitising their classrooms for engaging students. Thus, Mihir explained the education infra as the entire hygiene behind teaching and learning digitisation in India.

As per reports and industry experts, the education industry in India was estimated to be around over $100 billion dollars in 2019. Besides, India is also the second-largest market of e-learning after the USA. Thus, education infra has practically impacted the entire ecosystem and this is the kind of opportunity that needs to be explored, Mihir said.

“The phenomenal growth has just started to unfold and we are hopeful for a bigger aspect both in India and the global sector,” he added.

Teachmint’s education video as a service offering is quite unique. “Teachmint is known for its proprietary technologies to support teaching digitisation. For instance, the video platform utilised by Teachmint for the classes is a completely in-house-built, end-to-end live video solution with a two-way interactive process. Besides, we are perhaps the only startup in India to own this technology, thereby enhancing conversations during classes and making them interesting,” said Mihir.

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A different approach

The pandemic has led to widespread online classes but a larger part of rural India is still under the dark haze of the lack of digital infrastructure.

“Access to quality education is our mission. More than 75-80 percent of usage of our products emerge from the Tier II, III cities, and rural areas. The kind of grassroots adoption we are talking about also extends to the government schools operating in a hybrid manner and upgrading to the infrastructures by Teachmint,” shared Mihir.

Individual tuition teachers to school teachers, and university professors, have all adopted the platform with a self-onboarding kind of mode. Teachmint ensures tech enablement by individuals, thereby helping them to gain the experience of first-time teaching, and in a way reducing the wider gap of teacher-student ratio, especially in rural areas.

For instance, as Mihir stated, “We have a dentist teaching part-time Biology, or a CA taking accountancy classes.”

Mihir believes that going forward, education infrastructure could be a major export-driven product out of the innovation happening in India.

Mobile-first or video-first teaching infrastructure still has a major gap on the global map that needs to be addressed, where both teachers and students need quality products to attain digital education.

Teachmint is trying to solve the problem in India and hopes to get a wider reach across the globe, where educators and students from various locales can access the platform with ease.

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