The trend of Indian emigres returning home — a phenomenon accelerated by the economic meltdown in the US and the West — is being warmly welcomed, especially if the accompanying baggage includes ideas and concepts to bridge India’s fractured education system. The baggage of Dinesh Mehta and Narender Oruganti of Gurgaon/California-based Catura Broadband Solutions Pvt. Ltd, does include such ideas which they hope to popularise through a new website named topchalks.com. On November 20, Catura Broadband launched its online supplementary education content packages for class XII students, following the CBSE curriculum. The website offers instructor-led classroom lectures directly to scalable digital media including the internet, LAN, and WAN.
“The USP (unique selling proposition) of our product is its affordability both in terms of price and broadband requirement. We devoted the first two years of our energy and resources towards vigorous technology development, for matching low broadband availability in India’s second and third tier cities and small towns. In the past one year we have produced 3,000 illustrated lectures based on the class XII curriculum,” says Mehta, an alumnus of Delhi University and Wayne State University, USA who together with his friend Narender Oruganti, promoted the company in 2005. Oruganti, from Osmania University, Hyderabad and Wayne State, also worked in the US for nearly 20 years before co-promoting Catura Broadband.
Following a “close study of the education scene in India” and investing Rs.50 lakh as promoters’ capital, augmented by Rs.30 lakh from the US-based venture capital firm Draper, Fisher & Juvertson, the duo promoted Catura Broadband Solutions three years ago. “Our business model offers students exposure to excellent faculty, which is the lacuna in Indian education,” explains Oruganti.
Unlike established players in the distance education market, topchalks.com’s focus is solely on the syllabus and fundamental concepts and bereft of fancy animation. “The teacher is very important in the ecosystem of education and with this content she will have more time for other activities as our product will serve the purpose of her assistant. Similarly, students who miss classes for health reasons or due to other commitments such as sports and extra curricular activities, can access missed lessons, playback lectures and write self assessment tests,” says Oruganti. The portal/website also offers social networking and software postings so that teachers and students can learn together.
With Intel India as an alliance partner, Mehta and Oruganti have levelled the playing field for students in non metros and small towns, who can now give good account of themselves in competitive exams such as CAT, SAT, IIT-JEE, PMT, GMAT etc.
Autar Nehru (Delhi)