How Is The Edtech Sector Adapting To Technology?
WizKlub is a Bengaluru based ed-tech startup, that builds cognitive excellence for school children through its HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) and SmartTech programs. To keep the learning going, Wizklub has moved all its teacher sessions online to keep young children engaged in exciting home-based learning including problem solving and robotics. Their products ‘SmartTech’ and HOTS are accessible by the kids from anywhere.
The WizKlub SmartTech Program, a first-of-its-kind for children as young as 6 years, builds lifelong skills and confidence to create tech products by application of coding, robotics, smart devices, and AI. The startup has 200+ centers in Bengaluru and has progressed 3000+ children through its programs.
To learn more about e-learning and the edtech sector, Gairika Mitra gets into an engaging conversation with Amit Bansal, CEO & Founder, Wizklub.
How do you think is the edtech sector going to upsurge in the near future?
The education sector has been slow in adopting technology compared to other sectors. A big reason for slow adoption has been the reluctance to change amongst the educators and parents. COVID-19 has brought a forced disruption to this long-standing status quo and forced the educators to adopt technology. Organizations like WizKlub who are building Future Skills in students by providing each learner a personalized learning path would be the future.
Most learners would continue to use these more efficient learning methods that they experienced.
How is Wizklub carving out a different niche for itself amid other players?
Firstly, the products offered by us are designed with research in cognitive learning. It allows us to provide a personalized learning path for every learner based on the existing cognitive levels of a student. The learner gets an engaging experience through a hybrid learning environment that cuts across facilitator, app, and conversations through Artificial Intelligence Innovation.
Secondly, most of the edTech players in k-12 space are still focused on curriculum (Maths & Science). WizKlub on the other hand is focused on “future skills” – the skills needed by children to succeed in future. WizKlub HOTS program ensures one stanine improvement in core cognitive skills (aptitude) that make every student a Smart Learner (Reader) and an Adept Problem Solver. The SmartTech program on the other hand ensures that each student develops the skills and the confidence to be a “Creator of Technology” instead of being just a passive consumer of technology.
How is AI and Analytics coming to aid while ensuring a higher efficacy in learning?
WizKlub uses AI and Analytics for ensuring higher learning efficacy of its programs. Our program has 83% learning efficacy – one of the highest in the learning industry. We use tech to personalize the learning path for each learner. The heart of the system is to fine-tune the efficacy of every learning item for different types of learners.
1.Personalization: WizKlub AI AI system creates a personalized learning path for each child based on the past performance on similar skills. Performance on a skill is judged using a mix of absolute score, accuracy in first attempt and number of successive correct responses.
2.Item Performance: WizKlub uses ML models to establish the performance of each learning item. The items that are not working well are retired and replaced with items that are working well.
Can technology be a ‘one size fit all’ solution to everything? Is the reliance worth?
Technology is a means to provide solutions that can deliver consistent quality at scale. When we are creating learning solutions, it is extremely important to use technology with an understanding of the science of learning.
Most edTech organizations fail to address the basic issue of understanding the needs of the educator and the learner. Any tech solution needs to work for its customers and consumers. For a learner, the solution needs to get all the components right – motivation for the learner to use the solution, ease of using the solution and ultimately have the desired learning impact after use. In a nutshell, engagement, ease-of-use and efficacy are necessary conditions for any learning solution to work.
Could you give us an insight into the nature and amount of funding raised by Wizklub?
Below are the details of the funding of Wizklub.
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors Name |
| Jan 2019 | Angel Round | 2 cr | Angel Investors |
| Jan 2020 | Seed Round | 7cr | Incubate Fund India, (Headquartered in Japan)
Insitor Impact Asia Fund (Headquartered in Singapore) |
What are your immediate and longterm milestones like?
In the first year of operation, we focussed on creating the product-market fit. We launched our Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) program in Bangalore in the middle of 2018. We were able to establish that kids love this program and were able to demonstrate a learning efficacy of over 83%.
Our long-term milestone is to create a million thinking minds that are trained on Future Skills – skills that need to be acquired today for a better future.
Lastly, any word of advice for the wannapreneurs?
The most important aspect to keep in mind for any startup in the edTech space is to focus on solving a real-problem. Most edTech companies fail as they try to force-fit a technology to a situation, so don’t start with the question – how can I use AI in education? Tech should be a means to solve the problem and not an end in itself. Instead, start with a real-problem and find out what all does it take to solve that problem.
