Education is a massive opportunity in India. There are still a large number of students in the country that are deprived of physical structure (school and universities). Genext Students have become India’s first hybrid ed-tech tutoring platform for school students and their parents to connect with the best tutors in their vicinity.
The company was launched in 2013 by Ali Asgar Kagzi and Asad Daud, graduates of London School of Economics. This new startup aims to utilize technology in education. Other than providing students with the provision to connect with tutors, it also provides comprehensive digital content, assessment tools, and analytical tools for adaptive learning.
At present Genext Students caters to school students from class 1-12 for CBSE, ICSE, SSC (Maharashtra) in English medium, Rajasthan and UP Boards (in Hindi medium). Moving forward the company aims to add study content for various other state boards in vernacular languages. Although technology forms the core of the Genext Students offering, it offers tuition services at either student’s home or teacher’s place.
The ed-tech market in India is still at its nascent stage and in the coming time, it will grow at a rapid pace of more than 42%. By 2020, it has been reported that it will reach around $7 billion. In keeping with the growing structure of this domain, Genext Students has been working with an exceptionally lean and aggressive model. It has a top-notch team of 12 members which comprises folks from top institute like IIT and IIM.
Commenting on the challenge faced by the company, Ali Asgar Kagzi, Founder Genext Students said, “The biggest challenge is to create a suitable platform which can offer substantial value for all the stakeholders involved students, parents, and tutors. The other challenge is ensuring stickiness to this platform as large part of India are still skeptical about technology and are wary of paying an online subscription.”
To overcome these challenges, the company has partnered with all leading telecom operators in India – Idea, Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel so that it can offer mobile balance payment solution. It is the first ed-tech company to have formed strategic alliances with top organizations like Samsung, Intel, IBM, etc. so that its content could reach a larger audience.
When asked about where does he see his company in the coming five years, Ali Asgar said, “We aim to focus on scaling rapidly, adding more tutors and students across the main cities of the country so that tutors can connect and come in partnership with tutorials.”
