Exclusive | India is now ready for online education: EduKart's Ishan Gupta

The ever expanding field of online education now has a new entrant. Set up by Ishan Gupta and Mayank Gupta, the education portal, www.eduKart.com will be imparting online education in the areas of retail management, financial management, digital marketing, programming languages and project management. Edukart is targeting students and working professionals who want to upgrade their educational qualifications and make advancements in their careers. While Ishan Gupta is an alumnus of Stanford University, Mayank Gupta is an IIM, Kozikode post-graduate.

 

Says Ishan Gupta, CEO, EduKart.com, “With the improvement in broadband penetration in the country, people becoming more comfortable with e-commerce and the increased use of internet for the purpose of education, we believe that India is now ready for online education.”  Online education in India will definitely gain pace and become a well accepted medium to upgrade skills, he adds.

 

The first phase of the venture has been funded by angel investors like Sasha Mirchandani (Kae Capital) and Vijay Shekhar Sharma (One97 Communications Ltd) and friends from the Stanford University community who are also professional investors in companies like Warburg Pincus, Providence Capital, Wardferry Management Ltd.  

 

The company aims to target tier II and tier III cities and is aiming at 10,000 students in the first year. Keeping the market in mind the pricing has been kept low. Says Gupta, “our mantra is to give quality education at affordable price points so that we reach to maximum students who can benefit from these self paced courses.” The company believes that scalability and quality challenges in the educations sector can be overcome by leveraging internet for delivery. Further, by being completely online, it will save on the infrastructural costs as compared to brick and mortal education providers.  

 

The online medium has been adequately backed up with offline support, telephonic support and such other facilities. The courses are also being sold through multiple e-commerce portals like Letsbuy.com, Indiatimes.com, Rediff.com and Tradus.com.

 

The courses have also been endorsed by industry bodies. For instance the Digital Marketing course will be certified by IAMAI-Internet and Mobile Association of India, while retail management will be certified by the Retailers Association of India. Going ahead, says Shan Gupta, “we are planning to launch courses in energy management and telecom management and may also look for more partnerships.