– Paromita Sengupta (Bengaluru)

Bengaluru-based serial edupreneur Vidya Jayaraman is currently the founder-director of StudyMatix Learning Pvt. Ltd (headcount: 10; estb. 2024), an edtech company offering two flagship products — Learning Well!, an educational game-based learning app for K–Class VI learners aimed at foundational literacy, and Lexillion, an AI-powered teaching assistant serving students from pre-K through graduate studies across all subjects.

In particular, Lexillion provides students personalised, syllabus-matched support in eight Indian and four foreign languages. It is also designed to help teachers create lesson plans, practice material, and learning resources tailored to individual needs.

Newspeg.

Last July (2025), Learning Well! was selected by a global jury under the “Games in Development” category for the 13th International Educational Games Competition, part of the 19th European Conference on Games Based Learning, staged at Nord University, Norway, in November.

“Although the app didn’t make it to the final stage of the competition, its selection placed it among educational games being evaluated by an international jury of experts in game-based learning, along with researchers and practitioners from across Europe and beyond,” says Jayaraman.

History.

A chemical engineering alumna of NIT Surathkal, Jayaraman began her career in 1992 in the chemical engineering industry, working with SM Dyechem Ltd, Toyo Engineering India, Supreme Petrochem Ltd, and ThyssenKrupp (Uhde India). Raised in a family of educationists and mathematicians, she quit corporate life in 1999 to follow her true calling — education — beginning with an exam-prep centre.

“Early in my journey, I discerned that the most hardworking students were being held back by math fear,” recalls Jayaraman. Determined to understand why, she spent significant time in schools, working directly with Class I–VIII students and their teachers to discover what it would truly take to make mathematics meaningful.

That research became the foundation for Math Adventures Education LLP, which she founded in 2012 with supportive friends and family. As founder and lead curriculum designer, she conceptualised the Math Master Series, an activity-based learning approach for mathematical concepts. She wrote the entire K–8 curriculum and grew the venture from a single pilot into a programme serving over 75,000 students across primary schools in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Balipara, and Jodhpur.

She also built a social model that enabled women returning to the workforce to re-enter professional life by training them as programme facilitators. Math Adventures was acquired by Byju’s in 2018, where she served as Vice President of Content Development for four years, designing meaningful learning experiences for millions of students.

Simultaneously, she volunteered weekly for seven years at Ramagondanahalli Government School in Bengaluru — teaching mathematics, running Saturday game-based learning sessions for Classes I–VIII students, and equipping teachers with learning resources.

“As validated by the school’s programme coordinator, my Math Master curriculum has worked wonders with the children, just as Lexillion has transformed classroom efficiency. In fact, no child in the school today suffers from math fear or anxiety,” says Jayaraman.

Direct talk.

“Over three decades in education, I kept encountering the same troubling pattern in classroom after classroom: children who were not incapable of learning mathematics but immobilised by fear. Their anxiety was rarely about ability; it stemmed from foundational learning gaps that had been overlooked for years. Once those gaps widened, math became something to avoid rather than explore.

Between 1999 and 2011, I began developing the Math Master Series to address this challenge through hands-on, concept-driven learning. What started as a direct intervention for a few hundred students grew to impact over 600 children personally and later scaled to more than 75,000 learners across Bengaluru and Mumbai.

In 2018, my company Math Adventures was acquired by BYJU’S, where I went on to serve as Vice President (Content Development), designing meaningful learning experiences for millions of students. Through these experiences, one lesson stood out loud and clear: technology alone cannot transform education without strong pedagogical foundations. Digital tools amplify impact only when grounded in sound teaching principles. That belief led to the creation of StudyMatix — a platform built not to replace teachers, but to extend their reach and effectiveness,” says Jayaraman.

Future plans.

Jayaraman is bullish about the positive response to Lexillion.

“Our AI-powered personal tutor, Lexillion, is set to launch in June 2026 through two carefully chosen partnerships that will provide students immediate and meaningful access. A global personal computer manufacturer has shortlisted Lexillion as the pre-installed default application on its education-focused devices, giving us direct access to students from the moment they open their laptops.

Simultaneously, we are partnering with Orange Education Publication (OEP), which specialises in mathematics and computer science textbooks, to embed QR codes linked to Lexillion directly into their learning material. Students using OEP texts can scan a code and connect instantly to personalised, syllabus-matched support that extends and deepens what they are learning on the page,” says Jayaraman.

Also Read: Steve Hardgrave: Financing India’s Low-Cost Schools for High-Impact Education