corporate profile
With a 24-year legacy into bettering education, Everonn has come a long way and is now one of the leaders in the market with its hi-tech initiatives. In a tête-à-tête with Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Cheif, digitalLEARNING, P Kishore, MD, Everonn speak about the journey of the company. Excerpts:
Everonn Initiative in Bettering Education Please elaborate on how the journey of Everonn began. When you are a first generation entrepreneur you don’t have to worry much; there is nothing to lose. The journey began 24-years ago. So, what started as one teacher and four students, today is an assembly of 6900 people and we touch and teach about three million children every day. Of course we pioneer in bringing the first digital content in classrooms. Our entire innovation started from a very
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fundamental education psychology. It says that what you read your brain retains only 10 per cent of it. However, the learning process says what you see and hear, the brain retains 20 per cent of it. And the next level of experiential learning says your brain retains 40 per cent. We said can we take the children from 10 to 20 per cent. So I used computer as a vehicle to deliver the read, see and hear in the Indian classrooms. So we brought in digital classroom 24-years ago.
Computers were costly and not user friendly at that time. How did you manage with the Proposed Plan? There were only two manufacturers at that time-Wipro and Aiko Computers. Thus instead of choosing such costly things, we got most of the content from BBC which we used to deliver in video cassette players in the classrooms. Those days there was a language called “logo” that we used to teach; that’s how we had built our platform.
corporate profile
Which were the initial schools? I started this in Ooty as it is famous for its private schools. Nobody believed in it as they also had not seen computers. So I finally started in my alma mater Breeks Memorial School, following which we had almost all the schools in the Nilgiris. The next scale was targeted to the government. In 1998, we partnered the Tamil Nadu government and introduced this in 17 government schools. In 2000, Tamil Nadu became the first government in India to introduce this in the government schools and we got 332 schools. That was a PPP model for the first in the country. How did you handle 332 schools suddenly in terms of funding? Besides the funding of Arun Kumar, my friend, I am mainly thankful to IDBI bank for granting the huge sum of Rs 21 crore at that time. Although I started with an SBI loan of 1 lakh 15 thousand in 1987 and I continue banking with them. How long was this project and what happened next? It was a five-year BOOT- Build Own Operate and Transform model. The next state was Andhra Pradesh and the then chief minister Chandrababu Naidu launched a project for thousand schools. In 2002, I had my first large investor, Satpal Kattar, founder investor of HDFC bank. In 2006, we had Tamasik investing with us from Government of Singapore. In 2007, I took this company for an IPO. It was oversubscribed and we still hold that record. There was nobody willing to underwrite our issue. I went to collect Rs 50 crore. My issue was oversubscribed 145 times. I ended up collecting Rs 7,200 crore. We have 43,000 shareholders. World’s biggest people are today investing with us, including Black Stone, India Capital and Morgan Stanley. So, did the IPO change the whole journey of your growth? We at Everonn believe that education can be measured in two ways-- one is a good teacher and another is good quality content which can be consistently delivered but that is missing in India. So we selected to do this by the satellite as my content was heavy. We pioneered in bringing it to the schools and colleges of India. Therefore
a student in Nagacoil, Nellur or Shimoga will get to learn from the best teachers as they don’t have teachers there. Today I can set up a virtual classroom anywhere in India in less than four hours. So don’t you think that the whole expansion from pre-school to Bschool was dramatically in a very short time? An Everonn customer is for five years, be it government schools or colleges. So the challenge to my team was, can we make it to 25-years? So we are setting up schools, colleges across India. This is completely a people-driven company. We have built a team and they are the own-
regulator so that the focus on quality is given. What is your opinion on the Union Budget’s new allocation to education, including Right To Education? I think the RTE is very important. Each one of us has to support it. We have to ensure that every kid in this country is educated. There are inefficiencies in the government. When the government is spending more money on one child’s education then how is it different from private schools? The government shouldn’t be doing this. Why should we pay for inefficiencies? So, give them an education voucher. I think the step has begun. If you have decided to give
What we did from the last 500 years will be completely different in the coming 20 years. The future OF learning is about collaborative AND immersive learning ers of the team. They are also the share holders, be in skills, technical, all of them are partners in the company. Do you think it would be tough for Indian companies to have sustainable growth when companies like Pearson are coming here and working so aggressively? Indian companies will be there as they are able to raise more money for the fact that they know Indian market better. Foreign companies will also come in and play at large. My vision is to make every Indian a global product and a global citizen by delivering them world class content and practice. Let’s remember that this is the wealth-creating India. How can India’s GDP grow to two trillion? It can only be done by human capital. Education is the only answer to create wealth in this young India. How do you see the government playing its part? Government has no choice. With limited resources that’s all they can do. I think the days of public private partnership is here to stay. The government would have to be a good facilitator and
cash directly for kerosene, gas then why can’t you give it for education? You recently had investment from SKML. What are your strategies for that? I think the objective is to help us set up more classrooms, schools and colleges. They are interested in what we are doing. Nikhil Gandhi has very clearly got his vision for education and adding value to every young Indian. I admire him for what he has done in infrastructure. I think Indian education needs quality infrastructure. It’s a great synergy for us to have someone like Nikhil Gandhi. What’s going to be the education scene in the next five years and Everonn’s role in it? I assume that in the next five years education will move from black to white. For generations we have gone through the teacher centric guru-shishya system, but in the next two decades it will move from teachercentric to student-centric which will be completely technology-driven where they can do self assessments. The classrooms will be round unlike previous ones where the teacher sits in front addressing them. \\ digitalLEARNING / april 2011
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