Kopykitab, a Bengaluru-based EdTech start-up and personalised virtual-learning platform for higher education, founded by Sumeet Verma and Amit Shrivastava in 2013, is one of India’s leading education platforms that helps students access curated content as they either prepare for the toughest competitive exams or they scour for study material for their graduate and postgraduate courses. In March this year, they rolled out their #GharBaithePadho
Kopykitab offers its services in over seven regional languages — Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit and Urdu — besides English and Hindi, and caters to all age groups of students, from school students to college or competitive exam aspirants. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning programmes also help students access relevant books for their needs. "The Indian education market is pegged at more than $100 billion and with the advent of digital learning, it has helped students access the best content and learning options for them without spending lakhs on coaching or buying hundreds of books. For students getting into higher education, their main goal is to get a good job. People keep looking for the right kind of content but they feel overwhelmed as it is scattered. When they require it, it might be very expensive or not suited to their needs. We thought technology might solve this everlasting problem, so we tied up with all the top publishers in India," says Sumeet.
Kopykitab's website and app are focused on fostering the very backbone of the education system by bringing all the relevant study material under one umbrella. During the lockdown, their collection has helped students with a one-stop solution for their daily needs in terms of their whole learning lifecycle. Increased internet access across the country has made this portal the go-to choice for over 45 lakh students already. Sumeet adds that students can first check out content and material for free and then further opt only for what they require. Their charges begin from as low as `199 and goes up according to the number of materials students opt for. "But they don't have to spend on an entire book if they want to read just one chapter, they can buy only what they want," Sumeet highlights.
He adds, "The Kopykitab ereader app can be downloaded for free and then, one can access the content on our platform. Currently, we have also roped in teachers who will be available to take online classes, solve doubts for students who opt for a package that includes study materials and a mentor. The free sessions began during the lockdown and we've got a great response. We are targetting the higher education sector specifically which not many EdTech platforms are doing. Eventually, when more teachers and students come in, we plan to monetise this," says Sumeet. In the past month, Kopykitab has added more than 700 students to their platform and engagement has gone up too, notes the co-founder, adding, "We want to keep building our content, use technology like AI more and, of course, spend some time on branding."
