MEdRC in talks with broadband players

MEdRC Edutech Limited, a city-based medical e-learning company, is in negotiations with broadband providers to reach out to a larger customer base through high-speed internet cafes.

The company is also mulling on the setting up of 200 e-learning centres across the country at a cost of about Rs 10 crore.

At present, the company provides virtual training for the post-graduate medical entrance at 14 MEdRC-Dreamz centres across the country.

The course comprises over 300 e-lectures, quizzes and tests conducted by a popular teacher and author of 16 books in the field, Murali Bharadwaz. MBBS graduates get to revise 18 subjects to prepare for various PG (MD/MS) entrance tests. Each day, a test paper with 50 important multiple choice questions (MCQ) is provided to the students. The answers are revealed one by one.

In the 100-day course, the student gets to collect a 5,000 MCQ bank. Around 3,500 students underwent these courses in the last two years.

Neeraj Raj, director of MEdRC Edutech, said that there was a huge demand for such courses from more medical graduates as only a few of them could access the MEdRC centres.

"The company is planning to provide the courses through the high speed internet centres being set up by broadband providers in the country," he said.

MEdRC has now set its sights on the common entrance test for engineering and medical courses (EAMCET) in the state.

The company plans to launch the course by December this year. It is also developing e-learning courses of 25 lessons each in fields such as finance, marketing, accounts, HR and operations. The company has also developed course modules for ITC-IBD, Dr Reddy's, Tamil Nadu Agriculture University etc.

An e-learning solution, SmarTeach, has been developed in-house for launching virtual education. Explaining the features of SmarTeach, Neeraj Raj said the centralised server side monitors requests from students and teachers and appropriately processes these to deliver content or services.

It also processes the tracking features including usage statistics, bookmarks, assessments and results. The teacher side modules allow creation of lectures, authoring of content and question banks.

Students also have access to the virtual classroom to take lessons and examinations. He said that piracy threat had prevented the company from launching CDs.

"MEdRC is planning to bring the best medical teachers together as a virtual faculty for imparting a curriculum-based teaching programme that can be accessed at medical colleges," he said.

He estimated that it would cost over Rs 10 crore to set up a network of 200 e-learning centres, one each at every medical college "� on a build, own and operate model.

The company has initiated dialogues with venture capitalists in this regard, he said. MEdRC is already digitally archiving the teachings in radiology of Padmashree Kakarla Subba Rao, the director of Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here, he added.