How Convegenius plans to bridge learning gaps for 100 million children

Edtech firm uses AI to create personalised learning solutions for students from disadvantaged backgrounds

When Jairaj Bhattacharya looked at India’s ballooning edtech sector, he realised it was almost exclusively focussed on the top end of the market — the richest kids, the most expensive products, the biggest money spinners. Typically, the products cost anywhere between Rs 50,000 and Rs 2 lakh for a yearly subscription were in English and required both internet connectivity and some form of device access. Yet the widest gaps in India’s education and learning progress were at the bottom end — the 100 million children who could not afford any of the above. 

Bhattacharya, together with two of his classmates at the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, and another from IIIT Allahabad, decided to leverage their expertise in technology to make a difference in the way India’s students learn. But they were determined to approach the problem from an angle everyone else was ignoring. 

The reasons for the apathy towards the bottom end of the market are manifold. Vernacular is not easy to do (English is), you can never hope to earn revenue directly from the customer (the bottom 100 million simply cannot afford it), reaching your audience is harder (geographical spread and limited access) and you have no choice but to work with governments (not the easiest of partners).

“The idea was to focus on the bottom of the pyramid, where there is the maximum scope to disrupt and create impact,” says Jairaj Bhattacharya, Co-founder, Convegenius

But Bhattacharya and his friends were undaunted by these challenges, and in 2013, they set up Convegenius to realise their goal. In the first two years, the for-profit company was bootstrapped, but soon, the founders were able to bring in investors to support the enterprise. Through funds raised during 2014-18, the company focussed on product development, using technology and their own technical skills. “The idea was to focus on the bottom of the pyramid, where there is the maximum scope to disrupt and create impact,” explains Bhattacharya.

The team developed a programme using artificial intelligence to create personalised learning solutions for students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. “Adaptive learning is like applying a GPS analogy to learning. Just as a GPS map determines point A, your current location, and takes you to point B by charting out a journey based on the shortest distance/time, adaptive learning is about understanding where you are today (point A) and where you need to get to (Point B) in learning levels,” says Bhattacharya. 

Like other edtech start-ups Byju’s, Vedantu, and Toppr, Convegenius also provides personalised content, adaptive learning and assessments tailored for each child. But there are some differences, too. Convegenius’s solutions are directed at the bottom 100 million children (although the company sees its full potential market at 235 million), they are as economical as possible, are designed with expectations of low broadband and internet connectivity, and cater to a host of local languages. 

By March, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country, Convegenius’s offerings had reached 5,40,000 students across 16 states in nine vernacular languages, primarily through NGOs, corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and interventions aimed at affordable private schools and budget private schools, primarily working B2B. But when schools shut down in response to the pandemic, the company faced a dilemma — it could either wait and watch or move from B2B to B2C. It opted for the latter, and the content was quickly moved from offline to online and made available through WhatsApp. 

The team had found that parents were lackadaisical about downloading or using any other apps, and parents’ work and needs got priority over their children’s. Hence, the best option seemed to be to offer the content via WhatsApp that could be accessed at any time and allow students to complete the assignment delivered through a bot (robot) which sent videos and other material in the language the children were most comfortable with.

The simplicity of the method caught the attention of state governments which were struggling to reach disadvantaged students in their states, many of whom did not have internet connectivity, tablets, computers — in short, none of the tools to give them to access online learning. 

Himachal Pradesh, where the administration had no means of reaching students in hilly terrain, was the first to adopt the solution for its “ghar se pathshala” programme. This enabled the state to reach over 0.5 million kids in just three months. Today, Convegenius is also working with Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, and reaching close to 5 million students in these five states. 

When life comes back to normal post the pandemic, Convegenius hopes to stay on and supplement regular school learning, which remains indifferent in many government and budget private schools.

But in a model where the primary customer can never afford to pay for your service, how does a for-profit venture hope to survive or make money? To address this challenge, Convegenius is building an impact dashboard as an inventory for CSR funds. 

“We are selling impact as a service to corporates who may want avenues to meet their CSR obligations. For every dollar, one student can improve their learning outcomes through our personalised learning system,” explains Bhattacharya.

So, potentially, the company can reach a revenue of $100 million a year. The assumption is that any product that is free for the end customer can reach the masses and can be democratised.

Gouri Gupta, head of ed-tech for Central Square Foundation (CSF), one of India’s leading foundations in the K-12 space, stresses that India urgently needs solutions focussed on the government and budget private school system, in a language understood by the children (vernacular), and built for infrastructure that these children have access to (mobile phones, low broadband and connectivity). 

So she sees tremendous scope in what Convegenius is attempting. For instance, at present, almost 45 per cent of parents in rural Uttar Pradesh use WhatsApp.

However, some experts are not sure if a model that attempts to replace teachers with bots is something that can work in a country at India’s stage of development. Also, many free solutions in the learning ecosystem exist already and Convegenius will have to compete with them. Ultimately, whoever can stand apart in the clutter will be the winner. 

The belief guiding Bhattacharya and Co. is that if you spark curiosity in a child, you change a family, but if you spark curiosity in 100 million children, you change a country. Though on the right path, clearly, Convegenius still has some way to go to reach its goal.