Making science fun and engaging

Krishna Srinivasan points towards two models of roads; one 29 cm long and the other, 33 cm. The first one is straight while the second one has a bend in it. He takes two spherical objects that he plans to roll on to the two road models. On which of the roads will the ball reach the other end first, is his question.

Well, if you thought that it would be the straight road, you would be off track. It is the one with the bend. The ball gains kinetic energy because of which it gathers momentum and reaches the other end faster than the one rolled out on the straight road. This is one of the many teaching tools that Krishna’s company, Everest Edusys & Solutions, has devised, as it aims to make science teaching easy and learning fun.

“It is easier for teachers to introduce new concepts with activities like this,” says Krishna, showing off different teaching tools that his venture has created, in the science lab of his venture located in Chennai. The tools are meant for high school students. Everest Edusys targets both private schools and government schools – mixing a mainstream entrepreneurial venture with one that has a social impact.

Krishna, 43, a serial entrepreneur, has tweaked the business model for each category. For private schools, he sells the educational tools, while for government schools, he runs science centres where the students come to learn.

This is Krishna’s fourth venture; the other three were in the US – the first two in Silicon Valley and the third, a financial services KPO, based in New York with a strong India connection. Krishna and his wife Hymavathy, both with qualifications in computer science, started Everest Edusys in 2011, with their own money of around ₹5 crore.

Everest Edusys, which offers its products and services under the brand name QED, for Quest, Explore and Discover, raised ₹5.7 crore from Lok Capital, an impact investment venture capital firm, and Chennai Angels, a network of wealthy individuals who invest in and mentor start-ups, last year.

His belief is that quality of education can only be improved by improving the teacher-student engagement. He feels one just cannot pop a pill and say ‘here is quality’. “The hypothesis is you can influence the quality if you can influence the engagement,” says Krishna. Thus, the husband-wife duo decided not to spend too much worrying about quality, which after all is an output metric. Instead, they decided to influence the input. Why science? It lends itself to interesting teacher-student engagement.

According to Krishna, if one looks at middle-school science, it is made up of more than 200 discrete scientific concepts. It may be a simple thing like magnetism or electricity, or even cell biology. Concepts are getting scaffolded, which is the same all over the world. That is the crux of basic science. “What you don’t have,” says Krishna, “are tools for teachers to create a better engagement.” Therefore, Everest Edusys started looking at products that would make it easier for teachers to bring the concepts alive. All of these need to get mapped into the curriculum. The challenge before Krishna’s team was to bring about the change in teaching without intimidating the existing ecosystem.

The other challenge was to adapt the same product for government schools and tweak the business model. For the private schools, Everest Edusys sells the products and the teachers demonstrate the concepts to the student. Government schools, however, require teachers or teaching assistants to man the centres. Furthermore, no one would want to take responsibility for the equipment, as they would be held to account if any of them got damaged.

“If I give this product to a government school and if it breaks, the headmaster will be held responsible. We told the government we will take responsibility of running the centres. If anything breaks, we will replace it,” says Krishna.

In the private sector, Everest Edusys has sold the tools to 200-odd schools, in Chennai and Bangalore, with each school covering 300-400 students. It runs 20 centres in Chennai covering about 220 government and Corporation schools, for about 25,000 students. Both the segments contribute equally to Everest Edusys’s turnover.

Krishna is thinking of a pan-India expansion for private schools and is trying to figure out whether it makes sense to rope in a partner or to go solo. “We are in the midst of a partnership conversation, which we will be announcing shortly,” Krishna says, on the expansion plans.

According to Krishna, Everest Edusys has got a validation of the teaching methodology from the government schools – grades had improved across the board for the students from one term to another. The serial entrepreneur that he is, Krishna says each time he has learnt something new. “This is my fourth venture and I have done my 43{+r}{+d} fund raise. This time, I am interested in learning how to build a social venture,” says Krishna, who is active in an NGO.

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