It was Modi's Startup India that inspired Naresh Challagulla, who was the director at Tech Mahindra and had 20 years of experience, and a few of his friends to quit their jobs and give their all to Study Monitor, a company which they started in 2015 as a CSR initiative, but quickly realised its potential. The aims of Study Monitor are divided into two. The first is to ensure safety and security in schools through technology like automated attendance, real-time tracking of students, their assignments and more. The second is to connect rural schools to urban ones through their own platform which broadcasts classes live to schools in rural areas. "Our ultimate goal is to digitise the education sector, which we all know is lagging behind," says Challagulla.
Naresh Challagulla
While their first aim may be well within their reach, their second aim, of course, is laden with challenges. Schools seem reluctant to share their data, data that Study Monitor's cloud service solution requires. Also, the strength of the internet connection itself is a challenge, both of which they are planning to counter slowly. During the past two years, Study Monitor, which has two centres in Hyderabad and their registered office in Bengaluru, has taken up 20 odd schools and is currently in talks with the government of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. "In the next 10 to 15 years, all classes above primary will be virtual as they are more affordable because, even nowadays, a fee of one to three lakhs for a student of class II is exorbitant," says the 45-year-old, when we ask him about the future of e-classrooms.
Check them out at studymonitor.net
