Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s Aveti Learning Pvt. Ltd. is among top 30 global finalists to compete for the Next Billion EdTech Prize at the annual Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) in Dubai on 22-24 March. Each year the Global Education & Skills Forum brings together world leaders from the public, private and social sectors seeking solutions to achieving education, equity and employment for all. The Next Billion Prize recognises the most innovative use of technology that has the potential to radically impact education in low income and emerging economies.
Aveti Learning Limited offers Shikhya as a flagship e-learning program aimed at providing high-quality digital education to underprivileged students in Odisha. The setup aims to prepare content in other regional languages to benefit millions of students studying in their vernacular language.
Shikhya Initiative by Aveti Learning started with its founder Biswajit Nayak’s experiment to start a tuition center in his village back in 2014. His journey from a small village in Jajpur to Silicon Valley in US is fraught with struggle, perseverance and success. He always felt a sense of purpose and wanted to give back to his small village back home. However, he quite honestly admits he was initially propelled by a sense of ego; he envisioned coming back to the village, transforming it, and being hailed as a hero.
It’s been an interesting journey for Aveti Learning and its founding trio – Biswajit Nayak, Sushant Mohapatra and Sibabrata Choudhury. While Biswajit is trained in software and platform development, Sushant has worked on content creation and has already developed a comprehensive question bank for all the grades. Sibabrata comes with a background of rural development and has worked in Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar. All three co-founders have been working actively on this endeavour since the past ten years and share a common passion.
Aveti Learning as a recognised Start-up under Start-up Odisha aims to capitalize on the Digital Movement and provide crucial digital education content for students studying in Odia medium. For students without the economic ability or simply the access to quality in-school instruction, Aveti shows the way. Now over 5000 students in different parts of Odisha have benefited from educational content developed by Aveti Learning.
Vikas Pota, CEO of Tmrw Digital, which runs the Next Billion Prize, said:
“Congratulations to Aveti Learning for making the final 30 start-ups to compete in the Next Billion Prize 2019.
“The Next Billion Prize was created to shine a light on those gifted entrepreneurs that are not only ingenious, but also bold and persistent enough to bring forward the revolutionary ideas that are desperately needed to transform education in those parts of the world where there is limited access to high quality teaching.”
The 30 finalists will pitch to an expert panel of judges, made up of venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, educators, and experts in EdTech and learning sciences. They will also pitch to a live audience of GESF delegates, made up of leading education figures from public, private and social sectors.
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