Education woes get a digital solution

Hyderabad: In this era of internet, a person is often overloaded with information — true or fake. But, in India, information on education, especially higher education, is hard to come by. People often depend on word of mouth as they make crucial decision of their formative careers.

However, for founder, Seliha Muvva, and her partner, Renuka Velamati, the problem was, as parents, to pick the correct school for their kids.

So, Ms Muvva, together with Ms Velamati, decided to address the problem. But, Ms. Muvva’s first attempt, Edukul, despite her experience of more than 15 years as a teacher proved challenging.

The 37-year old blames the hardships to her ego and inexperience. “I had to do everything myself and I had to be the smartest person in the room. Looking back, it was ego that was prime reason behind my hardships,” she said.

This experience, according to her, gave her a better understanding of running a business. To correct her course, Ms Muvva, an alumnus of Christ College and Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, decided to enroll herself  to entrepreneurship course at IIM, Bangalore.

While working on Edukul, she realised how schools could digitise their admission process and increase their visibility online.

While the challenges may have smoothened as schools are more appreciative of our work, but there was resistance in regards to facilitating the first step of admission — filling up the form and digitsing their presence.

She teamed up with Ms Velamati, who had previous experiences of working in startups in the US, for her second attempt, Edvantage Point.

Now, her partner handles the day to day operations and HR, while she concentrates on the problems. However, the education sector is filled with deep-pocketed challengers. Yet, Ms Muvva was confident that Edvantage Point’s strategy to provide a wholesome experience will be enough to see out the challengers.

Founded in November 2016, the company has  expanded its services to recruitment too. “Apart from helping in admission, we are now looking at students to provide them with real-time counselling,” she said.