The Future of Social Learning – Eckovation
The Future of Social Learning – Eckovation
During my vacation after my semester exams, I got to know abouta few IIT aspirants who were revising their syllabus on a mobile social learning app called “Eckovation”.I knew that online learning is impactful however I had no idea how could someone get access to quality content and teaching for free. This increased my curiosity. I found out the contact details of Mr. Ritesh Singh, Founder and CEO of Eckovation and called him.
After a few days, I met and the co-founder of the app, Mr. Akshat Goel, in Delhi. Both of them graduated from IIT Delhi in 2012 and later in 2014, they left their lucrative jobs at multinational companies to pursue their dream of providing quality education to everyone.
Eckovation is a mobile-based platform to connect educators and learners (and their parents) to enable better communication and learning outcomes. The app is very light (~6 Mb), which makes it fluid and agile even in phones with moderate technical specifications and in areas with limited data coverage. Recently, Eckovation celebrated its first anniversary and also showcased its success story with about 60,000 members,out of which more than 4,000 teachers are imparting quality education.
Some features that captured my attention
The app is very safe. In order to ensure privacy, all phone numbers are kept private. I was surprised to see a chat like interface to which Mr. Ritesh Singh explained that it had been kept like that by design. A chat like User interface makes study groups more effective and interactive. Since I had seen students studying on the app, I couldn’t agree more.
Another feature that I found really interesting was the one-way to two-way mode. With this, teachers can change the mode of the app from ‘two-way chatting’ to ‘one-way only admin can post’ experience. It renders a lot of control in the hands of the admin. Also, their campaign “I Teach India” is accelerating the digital literacy at all levels by inviting teachers from all across the countryto teach on the platform. It is a high impact campaign and they already have more than 4,000 teachers not only from India but also from the USA, Japan, Netherlands and Australia as well.
In order to provide insights and suggestions to admins for better learning outcomes, the app maps user behavior too. They continue to make the platform smarter by infusion of Artificial Intelligence technology. It also aids contextualization of education, which is especially relevant in the Indian context due to diversity in dialects and cultures.
Market Opportunity
According to a survey, the online market in the field of education is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.50% over the period 2014-2019 and will be reaching US$10.30 billion by 2019. From a study, there has been a 217% Y-o-Y increase in the usage of education apps by Indian students. Even primary kids are spending more than 30% of their time online. With the market size of $2 Bn, Eckovation is achieving milestones and is ready to take the market by a storm.
