Oh, the number of hobbies Niyathi Varma pursues! She has been a musician for over seven to eight years now and dabbles in art and theatre too. She has tried her hand at scriptwriting and is currently working on a novel too. "Also, filmmaking courses — I am looking to pursue them," the 13-year-old pipes in. If one teen contains such multitudes within her, one can imagine the state of mind of others. It's the age of exploration after all. To discover the right tutors and, in that way, rediscover yourself, the platform Hobhop was developed by this teen entrepreneur.
The idea is to choose your tutor and sign up for trial classes, that's the first version of the platform that is to be released this week via Wix, the website hosting platform. But this is just their own trial phase. Once things get alive and kickin', there are more and more features to be added. So, are you ready for this?
Before we deep dive into what Hobhop offers, the Class IX student of Meridian School, Hyderabad, tells us all about the work she did that led her to the platform. She had been an entrepreneur before, she co-founded Tanneru Phoenix Brush to take art classes. The thought that prompted Hobhop was: Why just art? Why can't other hobbies be explored?. Focus groups, research...the works followed. She also bagged the Best Innovation Award at the Global Schoolpreneur Summit conducted by Metamorphosis, a start-up that aims to boost the entrepreneurial spirit of students. That's the validation she had been waiting for. Since then, Metamorphosis has been there for her every step of the way.
One of the most unique features of the Hobhop platform is that it allows you to get to know the tutor before you sign up for the session. And even if you do end up signing up but then don't like the classes, you can opt out then too. "You'll get your money back for all the unattended classes. In that way, we do right by both you and the tutor," says the teenager who counts her father, who is also an entrepreneur and an investor in her start-up, as one of her strongest pillars of support along with the rest of her family. The tutors will be free to design the curriculum as they see fit and Hobhop can be used to upload assignments, notes and so on.
Now coming to the million-dollar question, what does Nitya want to be in the future? "I see myself either doing business or pursuing law. I have given politics and diplomacy a thought as well, apart from considering acting in movies," she says nonchalantly. That's where hobbies come into play, isn't it? Because you never know, your current hobby might just become your future profession.
Trial classes will start off with 12 tutors from the fields of art, yoga and vocals. They will have a separate chat portal for queries while all the classes will be conducted over Zoom.
Heard of these extreme hobbies?
- Stone-skipping: Take an oval stone and throw it in a way that it skips over water
- Element collecting: You actually collect elements from the periodic table, get it?
- Cosplay: Dressing up as a character of a film, book or series. Details are the key
- Noodling: This is the art of fishing with your hands, catfish are the most common prey
For more reach out to her at niaditi712@gmail.com
