Picking the right school for your kid is one of the hardest decisions you'll ever have to make as parents. But if you live in Bengaluru, Chennai or Hyderabad, there's someone out there who's making it a tad easier. When you visit Edvantage Point Technologies' website, you'll see a simply done online portal that will help you pick the right schools (K-12) in these three cities. "But this is just 10% of what we do," informs Founder-CEO Seliha Muvva. And from our conversation, we realised that they have a lot more in store for us in the near future.
In a classic example of 'Necessity is the mother of invention', Muvva and her co-founder, Renuka Velamati, started Edvantage Point after struggling to find the right school for their own children. "As parents, we understand the dilemma that all parents are faced with. We just want to try to put an end to it," says Muvva, who has a whopping 15 years of experience in the education space. More so, as a former teacher, the gap in the education system was more evident to her.
Armed with a team of 30, they went about approaching schools with the offer to not only list their institutes on their website but also to facilitate the first step of admission — filling in the application form. However, they did face resistance from 10% of the top schools in Bengaluru. "Maybe they wanted to keep the application process to themselves or it could be that they were apprehensive about trusting us," mulls the 37-year-old, yet says confidently that with time, they should be able to win them over too.
But what is more exciting right now is that Edvantage Point wants to be more wholesome and inclusive; a one-stop-shop for education, starting with counselling. "We already have a team of ten counsellors who receive several queries a day through either email, phone calls or messenger," says Muvva. Most of the parents call to inquire about improvement exams and career counselling, especially about which course to take after class X. And the team is quick to respond as well — in 24 hours.
Aside from enquires, they also receive several résumés from teachers who are looking for jobs, informs Muvva. Today, the start-up's database has as many as 100 résumés. With this information, they plan to help schools with the recruitment of qualified teachers as well.
"We want to be there for anybody who wants to work with parents or schools," explains Muvva, which is why Edvantage is looking out for 'Eco-Partners' whom they can partner with — anyone from a shoe vendor to an IB tutor ("and those are hard to come by," she points out). In the long run, they want them to provide value additions to educational institutions, parents or students.
Phew! Now that's quite the to-do list. But these women entrepreneurs, despite the personal challenge of balancing work and home, are up to the task.
For more on them, click on edvantagepoint.com
