How is the year 2016 been in Education Sector?

Firstly, I think there has been a shift from looking at solutions from a technology perspective to understanding how students learn and creating value for them. 2016 has also seen a lot of teachentrepreneurs (teachers cum entrepreneurs) create solutions because of their understanding of the problem at hand.

Secondly I think the biggest news in 2016 has been the successive rounds of funding raised by Byju’s – a validation that edtech is a viable investment area. Till now the feeling was edtech was not really fundable but the valuation that Bjyju’s has received proves that the problem to solved is indeed large enough.

How do you see 2017 and what are your expectations from the coming year?

Most large problems have found a solution – if you search using google, buy using amazon, and travel using uber, you are looking at how an innovative company has solved a huge problem. Though we accept that quality education that is flexible is a large enough problem, we have not found a solution for it. So 2017 could be the year when a Microsoft – or maybe a home-grown Zoho ends up creating a solution that is universal, and becomes the “de facto” standard.

 

Personally for me, I have realized that in a fragmented market such as education it is important to grow a company like CrackVerbal through partnerships and channels. The way forward is for companies to consolidate to solve common problems. For example a common challenge faced by training companies is approaching colleges and corporates. So, if one company trains students for campus recruitment, and another trains them for a competitive test like GRE, and GMAT then it makes perfect sense for both the companies to combine their efforts. So CrackVerbal sees the next level of growth through partnerships where we are able to share the success.