B. Jayashankar and Praveen Krishnaiah are co-founders of Bangalore-based NetCracker Online Services Pvt. Ltd (estb.2010), which offers EduNest, a student information system and school admin-istration software to K-12 schools.Newspeg. EduNest will be launched in Delhi on July 1 with Krishnaiah, the companys chief executive moving base to Delhi. EduNest was launched in Bangalore in May 2010. Exactly a year later, we began sales and marketing operations and since then nine schools in the city have signed up with us. Now we are set to tap high potential markets in Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai, says Krishnaiah, an engineering graduate of M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore and an economics post-graduate of Bangalore University.
Unique sales proposition. The com-panys founders claim EduNests school administration and student information software can be customised, facilitates online submission of homework and assignments and enables smooth communication between parents and teachers via SMS/e-mail.
EduNest has incorporated an Interactive Grade Book compatible with CBSE, CICSE and IB board curriculums. The unique data-driven approach of EduNest helps students improve academic performance. Moreover EduNest is one of the few cloud-based education services hosted by Amazon Web Services, enabling schools to pay only for selected services. It is the only software which connects parents, teachers, students and top management through a hi-tech online interface. All this is priced at Rs.15 per child per month, says Jayashankar, an alumnus of Loyola College, Madras and the Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat, who is managing director of NetCracker Online.
Genesis. Former colleagues at the Bangalore-based QSupport Techno-logies Pvt. Ltd (an IT major offering web-based services), Krishnaiah and Jayashankar teamed up to design EduNest to facilitate greater interaction between parents and schools. As parents ourselves, we experienced insufficient communication between parents and teachers and considerable school time being wasted on routine administration work. This awareness prompted us to design an efficient, easy-to-use and reliable student information and administration software, recalls Jayashankar.
Future plans. With EduNest finding ready acceptance in the Bangalore test market, the duo want to sustain its momentum and expand their clientele. We have budgeted to grow our headcount from seven to 30 employees and revenue to Rs. 2-3 crore. Hopefully, our client base will also increase to 80-100 schools across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi this year. In the medium term we plan to diversify into training teachers to use ICT-enabled technologies effectively in their classrooms to improve student learning outcomes, says Krishnaiah.
Swati Roy (Bangalore)