With $6.5 M in funding, this edtech startup helps professionals remain relevant in their industry

Neha Jain     posted on 6th April 2018

AEON Learning offers online education platforms for working professionals encompassing both higher education and technology skill upgradation.

At a glance

Startup: AEON Learning

Founders: Karthik KS, Sankar Bora, Vikalp Jain and Rahul Jain

Year it was founded: 2013

Where it is based: Bengaluru

Sector: Edtech

Problem it solves: Provides online education

Funding raised: $6.5 million

In a fast-paced world where growth and development take place in a blink of an eye, keeping abreast with the goings-on in your industry becomes most crucial. Hence, online education has become one of the booming sectors in India. With the increasing internet penetration and the euphoria of Digital India, online education is expected to grow manifolds. It has witnessed a significant acceptance among working professionals in the last couple of years.

Contributing to the growth is a Bengaluru-based startup AEON Learning. It is an online education platform for busy young working professionals, encompassing both higher education and technology skill upgradation. AEON Learning, through its platforms Avagmah and Acadgild, helps professionals upgrade their skills and capabilities to remain relevant in today’s rapidly evolving employment market.

Founded by Karthik KS along with his friend Sankar Bora, in November 2013, Aeon eventually acquired Acadgild, another edtech company founded by Vikalp Jain and Rahul Jain in 2014. The duo later joined AEON after the acquisition. Vikalp is President at AEON Learning and Rahul Jain continues to be Head of Engineering.

From brick and mortar to online

Karthik, who has 23 years of experience in the education sector, says, “With millions of working professionals aspiring to compete with their global counterparts they need to continuously upgrade themselves. AEON Learning was started to meet this opportunity by helping reputed universities in delivering quality contemporary education via technology and internet.”

The Government of India had announced that it was targeting to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio in Higher Education (GER) from 23 percent to 30 percent. “We knew that educating millions more of young Indians to achieve this number could not be done without using technology, as the existing brick-and-mortar education system was already over packed. The only clear solution to build scale and address the issue of quality was by implementing technology. That is when we knew we had this fantastic opportunity of powering existing universities to go online and use existing faculty to reach a larger base of students across geographies to help India reach its GER target,” Karthik explains.

AEON claims to have reached 22,000 students across 66 countries, with 20 percent business originating from the US.  

Engagement-driven

Talking about the challenges while starting up, Karthik explains, “One of the key challenges we faced was that our solution was way ahead of the market. Our core offering then was for institutes and universities to offer their courses online. The online education industry in India was still in its infancy and the only popular medium for anyone who wanted to reskill themselves was through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The nature in which MOOCs were designed didn't really suit the Indian consumers as they are built on self-learning model and thus suffered high rate of students dropping out. Finding innovative, differentiated solutions to these problems became our main focus.”

Using technology as the core strength, the founders developed a learning platform that could replicate classroom learning in the digital world and further improve on it. Built on the principles of engagement, interaction and motivation, the core objective was to replicate the classroom environment.

The startup today offers student acquisition, engagement, retention, online content development, delivery of programmes, support, and analytics services, as well as programmes for marketing, finance, human resource management, and other related courses.

Sankar Bora, Vikalp Jain, Karthik KS and Rahul Jain - founders - AEON Learning

Product features

Avagmah partners with universities and offers access to quality education for working professionals. The universities use the Avagmah technology platform to help them reach out to a large audience through technology, with the platform enabling marketing, student counselling, enrolment, virtual classroom, student engagement, retention and more. Some of the universities and institutes on the platform include IIM Bangalore, Pondicherry University, NMIMS Mumbai, AIMA and Institute of Metro and Rail Technology (IMRT) among others.

Acadgild offers working professionals a platform to develop ready-to-deploy skills in new-age areas like programming, design and analytics. Acadgild’s hybrid education model brings together the intensity and rigour of the classroom with the convenience of technology, offering live sessions led by industry mentors. Acadgild offers relevant programmes like ones on data science, big data, blockchain, data analytics, and more.

AEON Learning has over 35+ corporate partners who have been upskilling and reskilling their employees on the platforms. Some of these partners include Infosys, Oracle, Cognizant, Abbott, MaxLife among others.

Founder backgrounds

The firm currently has a team size of 140 people.

Karthik KS, 52,  completed his engineering from NIT Kurukshetra and Management from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi. Previously, he had started 24x7 Learning, an edtech company offering e-learning solutions to corporates, and prior to that he was managing Microland’s education division – MicroUniv.

Vikalp Jain, 43, is Co-founder and President, who completed his B Tech from IIT Bombay. Prior to AEON Learning, Vikalp co-founded MOZVO, a social movie rating site, and was the CTO of FlipClass.

Sankar Bora, 40, who is Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at AEON, is a B Tech from NIT Kozhikode, and was the co-founder of Myntra.

Rahul Jain, 35, is Co-Founder and Head of Engineering at AEON. Prior to joining Acadgild, he co-founded MOZVO and had worked with Deloitte, Infosys and others. Rahul comes with a technology experience of over a decade and completed his B Tech from NIT Warangal.

AEON Learning’s revenue is from the students enrolling on the platforms, and each student paying the programme fee for their chosen course.

For the FY16-17 it clocked revenues of Rs 13.65 crore and claims to grew at  2.5x over the previous year. “By FY18-19, we are expecting to grow by 4.5x,” says Karthik.

This year, AEON Learning raised a funding round of $3.2 million from Ranjan Pai led MEMG Family Office LLP.

Till date, it has cumulatively secured $6.5 million from marquee investors like Vinod Dham, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Atul Nishar, MEMG Family Office LLP, Lionrock Capital, Zodius Capital and Jupiter Capital and Promoters Meena and Ganesh Krishnan.

Market landscape

According to a KPMG-Google report released in May 2017, the online higher education market is expected to touch $1.96 billion by 2021. Re-skilling and online certification courses currently account for a majority (38 percent) of the online higher education market, the report added. There has also been a surge in investments in the online education sector, with online skill training startups shifting focus from a university-based curriculum to a more industry-oriented training approach.

Besides AEON Learning, there are also Simplilearn and SchoolGuru in the similar space in India, while globally, companies like 2U (a listed company with a market cap of $3.3 billion), General Assembly and bloc.io are present.

Talking about its differentiator, Karthik says, “We are the only edtech firm in India that offers both short-term training programmes and long-term higher education degree programmes. Our student experience with real-time live lectures, discussion forums, projects, assignments, quizzes and vast learning resources help students get a better than classroom experience on the cloud, while providing personal attention from our mentors.”  

For the future, Karthik says, “AEON’s presence has already reached over 66 countries and we plan to focus on key markets like the US and Southeast Asia. Within India we are present in 150+ towns and cities with plans to expand our dominant presence in South India to the North and West regions.”

Source: Your Story.com (accessed on 9 April, 2018)

Link: https://yourstory.com/2018/04/6-5-m-funding-edtech-startup-helps-professionals-remain-relevant-industry/

Javadekar announces April 18 as launch date for Study in India programme

HRD minster said that if six lakh Indians are going out to pursue higher education, the new mission for Study in India programme is to bring 10 lakh foreign students into the country.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar plans to launch the programme along with Sushma Swaraj on April 18. (PTI)

To increase the inflow of foreign students to Indian universities, the union human resource development (HRD) minister Prakash Javadekar, on Friday, announced April 18 as the launch date of the Study in India programme.

He was speaking as chief guest at the inaugural function of the international conference on Internationalisation at Home (IaH), via video conference. It had been organised by Symbiosis International (Deemed University) (SIU) and Association of Indian Universities (AIU).

“In the first phase of the initiative, we will be introducing it in 30 countries which can later be expanded to 60 more. Although, currently, we have only 160 institutes under our wing, as far as this programme is concerned, in the future however, we want to take it further to more than 1,000 institutions to provide wider choices for the foreign students. The main objective here is to transform India into an education hub,” said Javadekar.

He stated that almost six lakh Indian students leave the country every year to study abroad, while only about 40,000 foreign students come to India to pursue higher education. “We need to change that scenario and boost internationalisation in India. With time, due to its affordable and reliable medical treatment system, India has become a popular choice for westerners, especially for patients from the US, where medical treatment is very expensive.”

Further, he said, “The situation is same in case of undergraduate education there, and we need to utilise it, by making India a hub for quality and affordable education. So if six lakh Indians are going out, the mission for Study in India programme is to bring 10 lakh students into the country.” Javadekar plans to launch the programme along with Sushma Swaraj on April 18.

Speaking about the importance of higher education in India and the many challenges and opportunities, the minister said that the government’s first priority is to nurture the school system and improve teaching and learning processes, particularly in schools and colleges in rural India.

While, professor PB Sharma, president of Association of Indian Universities, was present as the guest of honour at the ceremony, other dignitaries included Symbiosis International chancellor SB Mujumdar, pro-chancellor Vidya Yeravdekar, vice-chancellor Rajani Gupte, along with vice-chancellors of other prominent institutes.

Speaking as the keynote speaker, porofessor Hans de Wit, director of Centre for International Higher Education (CIHE), Lynch School of Education, Boston College, said, “Internationalisation is not about recruiting international students for money, or a means to move up in rankings but to improve the quality of education, research, and contribute to the society. The future in this respect, is for the world to become one whole family.”

India should neither adopt easternisation nor westernisation, but internationalisation by combining eastern wisdom and western dynamism,” said chancellor SB Mujumdar.

Anita Patankar, deputy director, Symbiosis Centre for International Education; Vidya Yeravdekar, pro-chancellor, SIU; Hans de Wit, director, Centre for International Higher Education (CIHE), Lynch School of Education, Boston College; SB Mujumdar, chancellor, SIU; PB Sharma, president, AIU and Rajani Gupte, vice-chancellor, SIU, were present at the inaugural function of the international conference on Internationalisation at Home (IaH).

Source: Hindustan Times dated 7 April, 2018

Link: https://www.hindustantimes.com/pune-news/javadekar-announces-april-18-as-launch-date-for-study-in-india-programme/story-yPMAFFWZFkZ1BdoaCbkJLP.html

UGC’s order shows how pervasive plagiarism is

Indian academia must be a wellspring of ideas, not a morass of regurgitated views

The new rules approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) say that researchers will lose their registration and teachers their jobs if found guilty of plagiarising. There will be graded punishment for offenders. This essential move should have come much earlier to ensure that Indian academia is a wellspring of fresh ideas rather than a morass of regurgitated thoughts. Plagiarism — the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own (read cheating) — has been gnawing away at India’s academia for years; even top academicians have been caught at it. For example, Pondicherry University vice-chancellor Chandra Krishnamurthy quit in 2016 after a prolonged stand-off with the ministry of human resource development, following allegation that she plagiarised large parts of one of her books. Appa Rao Podile, vicechancellor of the University of Hyderabad, was accused of plagiarising from not one, but three scientific papers.

In India, plagiarism flourishes for several reasons. It is almost ingrained in the system, starting from school where students are not taught to think or check on sources, but learn by rote from whatever notes they get their hands on. Few schools go out of their way to inculcate in students the moral integrity that treats plagiarism as a serious, scornful offence. To many students (and teachers), the Internet is a vast reservoir of knowledge and information into which they can dip at will. There are two flawed assumptions about the Internet: that it is always free (and free to draw upon), always accurate; and that there is no need to attribute sources to stuff taken from it.

There is no real action against people indulging in the malpractice. Guidelines on research misconduct don’t have any time frames for the closure of such cases. Institutions of higher education, which should push students to strive for originality, actually don’t want to rock the boat and punish those who indulge in plagiarism. The new rules should change that.

Source: Hindustan Times dated 5 April 2018

Link: https://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/what-the-ugc-ruling-on-plagiarism-means-for-indian-academia/story-E4JViz05BklkUGlRr918EL.html

Maharashtra government lifts ban on plastic bottles

However, it has made installation of vending and crushing machines necessary at starred hotels, malls, tourist places and public places across the state.

The government has decided to lift the plastic ban on small PET and PETE bottles with capacity of less than half litre. (HT File (Representational Image))

In a relief to people, the government has decided to lift the plastic ban on small PET and PETE bottles with capacity of less than half litre.

However, it has made installation of vending and crushing machines necessary at starred hotels, malls, tourist places and public places across the state.

This means that all starred hotels will have to install crushing machines for using PET and PETE bottles in bulk. Similarly, it will be mandatory for big malls to have vending machines for collecting used plastic bottles under the depository buyback scheme.

The manufacturers of PET bottles will also have to install vending and crushing machines at tourist and public places, senior officials from the state environment department said. However, people will have to pay Rs2 extra for using each small PET and PETE bottles having capacity of less than half litre under the depository buyback scheme.

The money would be refunded to the consumer in case he or she returns the plastic bottle to the shopkeeper or to the vending machine.

Furthermore, the state has also decided to give extension of another two months to people for disposing of the banned plastic items. Thus, implementing authorities cannot start any punitive action against the offenders till June 23. The notification to this effect is likely to be issued by Thursday, officials said.

According to the Maharashtra Plastic and Thermocol Products (Manufacture, Usage, Sale, Transport, Handling and Storage) Notification, 2018 on March 23, the government had banned manufacture, usage, storage, distribution, wholesale or retail sale, import and transportation of all kinds of plastic bags (with or without handle), single use disposable items made of plastic and thermocol — dish, cups, plates, glasses, fork, bowls, forks, spoons, straw, containers, non-woven polypropylene bags, pouches to store liquid, plastic to wrap or store products and packaging of food items and small PET and PETE bottles having capacity of less than half litre, across the state.

The state government also declared a fine of Rs5,000 and Rs10,000 respectively for first and second time offence. A third-time offender will be fined Rs25,000 and three months imprisonment. “The manufacturers, distributors, hotels and malls owners have to set up complete system of recollection and recycling of bottles in the next three months failing which the government may reconsider its decision,” said a senior official. They will have to ensure that the buyback scheme is working effectively through shopkeepers and vending machine across the state, he added.

Source: Hindustan Times dated 5 April 2018
Link: https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/maharashtra-govt-lifts-ban-on-plastic-bottles/story-6954d6cSMW6NQ6XSYEVUvL.html

SSC board syllabus upgraded: New Class 10 books launched

The new syllabus is student­centric. It has been upgraded in a way that our state board students will be at par with their counterparts from other central boards. VINOD TAWDE, education minister

MUMBAI: State education minister Vinod Tawde on Wednesday launched new textbooks for Class 10 state board students. The new syllabus which will be applicable from the 2018-19 academic year.

Education minister Vinod Tawde speaks at the launch of new Class 10 textbooks in the city on Wednesday.

The new syllabus is on par with the central board and will benefit of state board students, said Tawde.

“The new syllabus is studentcentric. It has been upgraded in a way that our state board students will be on par with their counterparts from other central boards,” said Tawde.

The textbooks were introduced in the city in the morning. Officials from the school education department said the new textbooks will be available in the market in all languages.

“Subject experts and our state board officials have worked on this [new textbooks] in the past one year to make this a reality,” he added.

In the past one year, ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has time and again demanded an upgradation of the school curriculum that focuses not just on academics, but includes overall growth and understanding of a child.

Tawde also mentioned that Maharashtra will be the first state to introduce “learning outcomes” of every subject to give students an idea of what the subject covers.

“This will help students understand how much they have understood a particular subject,” the minister added.

Source: Hindustan Times dated  5 April 2018

Link: https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/ssc-board-syllabus-upgraded-new-class-10-books-launched/story-GMVTYuNk9JS9XjN5RaknGO.html

Apple plans to replace Intel chips in Macs from 2020: Report

Apple is said to use its own chips for its Mac products.

TECH Updated: Apr 03, 2018 17:03 IST

Ian King and Mark Gurman 
Bloomberg

Apple’s latest move would be a big blow to Intel’s business.(REUTERS)

Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans.

The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple’s devices -- including Macs, iPhones, and iPads -- work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition.

The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple’s Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5% of its annual revenue, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis.

Intel shares dropped as much as 9.2%, the biggest intraday drop in more than two years, on the news. They were down 6.4% at $48.75 at 3:30PM in New York.

Apple could still theoretically abandon or delay the switch. The company declined to comment. Intel said, “We don’t comment on speculation about our customers.”

For Apple, the change would be a defining moment. Intel chips remain some of the only major processor components designed by others inside Apple’s product portfolio. Currently, all iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and Apple TVs use main processors designed by Apple and based on technology from Arm Holdings Plc. Moving to its own chips inside Macs would let Apple release new models on its own timelines, instead of relying on Intel’s processor roadmap.

“We think that Apple is looking at ways to further integrate their hardware and software platforms, and they’ve clearly made some moves in this space, trying to integrate iOS and macOS,” said Shannon Cross, an analyst at Cross Research. “It makes sense that they’re going in this direction. If you look at incremental R&D spend, it’s gone into ways to try to vertically integrate their components so they can add more functionality for competitive differentiation.”

Stand Out

The shift would also allow Cupertino, California-based Apple to more quickly bring new features to all of its products and stand out from the competition. Using its own main chips would make Apple the only major PC maker to use its own processors. Dell Technologies Inc., HP Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., and Asustek Computer Inc. use Intel chips.

By using its own chips, Apple would be able to more tightly integrate new hardware and software, potentially resulting in systems with better battery life -- similar to iPads, which use Apple chips.

While the transition to Apple chips in hardware is planned to begin as early as 2020, the changes to the software side will begin even before that. Apple’s iPhones and iPads with custom chips use the iOS operating system, while Mac computers with Intel chips run on a different system called macOS. Apple has slowly been integrating user-facing features over the past several years, and more recently starting sharing lower-level features like a new file management system.

‘Marzipan’ Platform

As part of the larger initiative to make Macs work more like iPhones, Apple is working on a new software platform, internally dubbed Marzipan, for release as early as this year that would allow users to run iPhone and iPad apps on Macs, Bloomberg News reported last year.

The company has also previously released Macs with ARM-based co-processors, which run an iOS-like operating system, for specific functions like security. The latest MacBook Pro and iMac Pro include the co-processors. Apple plans to add that chip to a new version of its Mac Pro, to be released by next year, and new Mac laptops this year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Intel has dominated computing processors for more than a decade, taking market share from Advanced Micro Devices Inc., its only rival in the market. Intel also designs and builds modem chips for some iPhone models so that they can connect to cellular networks and make calls. While Apple is down the list of computer sellers by unit shipments, it’s third when measured by revenue last year, highlighting the premium status of its products.

Apple’s decision to switch away from Intel in PC’s wouldn’t have a major impact on the chipmaker’s earnings because sales to the iPhone maker only constitute a small amount of its total, said Kevin Cassidy, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. A bigger concern would be if this represents part of a wider trend of big customers moving to designing their own components, he said.

In 2005, Apple announced a move to Intel chips in its Macs, an initiative that put former Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Ottelini on stage with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. It was a partnership that shook up the PC industry and saw Apple shift away from chips co-developed by IBM and Motorola.

Apple’s current chip designs made their name in thin and light mobile devices. That would indicate Apple will start the transition with laptops before moving the designs into more demanding desktop models. Apple has to walk the fine line of moving away from Intel chips without sacrificing the speed and capabilities of its Macs.

A decision to go with ARM technology in computers might lend it credibility where it has failed to gain a foothold so far. Qualcomm Inc., the biggest mobile phone chip provider, is working with PC makers to introduce new thin and light laptops based on its chips in another attempt to steal share from Intel. Microsoft Corp. is supporting that effort by providing a version of its Windows operating system for ARM technology-based chips.

Intel’s dominance of the market has been based on its ability to use leading manufacturing technology to produce processors that are more powerful than those of its competitors. Its would-be rivals haven’t yet produced designs that have displaced Intel’s products when it comes to crunching data quickly.

Apple’s custom processors have been recently manufactured principally by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. Its decision may signal confidence that TSMC and other suppliers such as Samsung Electronics Co. have closed the gap on Intel’s manufacturing lead and can produce processors that are just as powerful.

Source: Hindustan Times dated 4 April 2018

Link: https://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/apple-plans-to-replace-intel-chips-in-macs-from-2020-report/story-cD7xJDbt2mW7xtyXcruMkJ.html

References:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-said-to-plan-move-from-intel-to-own-mac-chips-from-2020

‘Indian engineering students gain in first two years, high-order thinking is poor’: Study

According to preliminary results seen by The Indian Express, students from disadvantaged sections in India make either comparable or greater skill gains than their advantaged cohorts.

The World Bank and Stanford University surveyed roughly 5,000 first-year and third-year B.Tech students from 200 randomly-selected public and private engineering institutes last year.

A learning outcome assessment of undergraduate engineering students in the country, conducted by Stanford University and the World Bank, suggests that Indian students make substantial gains in Mathematics and critical thinking skills in the first two years of their education compared to their counterparts in China and Russia. But their overall higher order thinking skills are “substantially lower” than the Chinese and Russians.

The World Bank and Stanford University surveyed roughly 5,000 first-year and third-year B.Tech students from 200 randomly-selected public and private engineering institutes last year. These 200 institutes did not include the Indian Institutes of Technology or the IITs. Similar learning assessments were also conducted for engineering students in China and Russia.

According to preliminary results seen by The Indian Express, students from disadvantaged sections in India make either comparable or greater skill gains than their advantaged cohorts. For example, the study shows that a disadvantaged student in India scores 0.228 points more from the median gain of advantaged cohorts in Mathematics. The finding is significant against the backdrop that an engineering degree is one of the aspirational educational qualifications for financially and socially backward students.

As per the study, disadvantaged students include those from socially backward communities, rural areas and poor families. Advantaged candidates are those from urban areas, wealthier families and socially advantaged communities.

According to the study, active teaching practices such as less lectures and more group activities are, predictably, found more prevalent in private engineering colleges than public institutions within the country. Incidentally, if one were to compare elite government engineering institutions in India — defined by the study as colleges that admit students through highly competitive entrance tests like JEE (Advanced) and JEE (Main) — to their non-elite counterparts, then active teaching practices are more common in the latter.

The inter-country comparisons throw up some interesting results. For instance, the study shows that Indian engineering aspirants start college with similar academic skill levels as Russian students, but less skills than Chinese students. However, once the Indian students join college, they make make significant skill gains in comparison to China and sometimes to Russia.

The inter-country comparisons are important as the majority of the world’s new engineering graduates come from China, India and Russia. About three decades ago, developed countries such as the US and Japan used to supply the largest chunk of world’s engineers. Detailed findings of this survey, which is part of the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP) supported by the World Bank, will be presented formally to the HRD Ministry this week.

Source: The Indian Express dated 4 April, 2018
Link: http://indianexpress.com/article/education/indian-engineering-students-gain-in-first-two-years-high-order-thinking-is-poor-study-5122475/