Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay incubated start-up InOpen Technologies is partnering with Tata ClassEdge, a leading provider of technology-enabled educational solution for schools. As part of this partnership, Computer Masti, InOpen's flagship computer science programme will be offered across all 1600 Tata ClassEdge schools.
InOpen is an IIT Bombay based educational start-up with a focus on developing high quality academic content through rigorous research. It offers products and services to government and private schools. The company was formally incorporated in October 2009 and incubated at the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIT-B. InOpen currently serves more than 600,000 students directly through its products, which includes its flagship product Computer Masti and its newly introduced science curriculum, Small Science. InOpen also works with the IT literacy solutions of various government and corporate organisations. It is present in about 350 schools.
Rupesh Kumar Shah, Co-Founder & CEO, InOpen Technologies said that they had received requests from big educational companies to partner with them. However, they decided to partner with Tata ClassEdge since it had a good brand reputation and a wide presence across schools."We want to target one-third of schools initially and look to reach about 2000 schools through this tie-up in the next 3-4 years," said Shah.
He added that InOpen will retain the majority portion of the revenue, while Tata ClassEdge will retain a portion of it. The branding of Computer Masti will also remain intact.Computer Masti consists of a graded text book, with the support of teacher training and assessments and is available for students in Class I to Class VIII. All programmes and content are presented in a narrative format through two child characters - Tejas and Jyoti. Colourful pictures, worksheets and interactive lessons are an inherent part of the textbook for each level.The lessons are based on free and open source software. The Computer Masti toolkit can be installed on commonly used operating systems
Nirav Khmabati, CEO of Tata ClassEdge said that both InOpen and Tata ClassEdge share the same educational philosophy-that teaching-learning ought to be active, participatory and skills-oriented.Tata ClassEdge provides comprehensive instructional solution that aims to empowers teachers to teach better, with an effective blend of curriculum-mapped classroom activities and interactive multimedia. Tata ClassEdge's proprietary instructional framework, Multiple Learning Experiences model, makes use of distinct types of activities that promote social and thinking skills in students, including critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, research-orientation and communication skills.
