Bhubaneswar, March 9: An engineering graduate from the state has made your search for the private tutor as easy as the click of a mouse.

Gaurav Mantri, a 28-year-old techie's start-up, redGraphite, is all about connecting students to the right teachers.

It is an online community of private tutors, where individuals can register themselves as tutors, post their photographs, skills and experience and get accessed by interested students instantly.

"It is an extremely effective medium for private tutors. Both students and teachers can access the portal and connect with each other," said Gaurav, who is a BTech graduate from Silicon Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar.

The portal is already connecting teachers to students. Gaurav said that more than 40 experienced teachers had already registered on his innovative portal.

The portal has come handy for many working parents in the city. Since their professional engagements keep them busy and they can hardly dedicate time to their kids, the portal is helping them to find the right teacher at the click of a mouse.

"Our aim is to bridge the gap between the tutors and students and provide multiple options for selecting the best tutor for the child. This apart, the platform also gives an opportunity to quality tutors," said Gaurav.

The idea to launch his unique venture came when the techie found many of his acquaintances requesting him to find a tuition teacher for their wards.

"I tried to help them but soon understood how difficult it was for the parents. I tried using my personal contacts and took the help of the Internet, but there was no solution in sight," said Gaurav.

He understood there existed a massive untapped market for private tutors.

"As I worked on it, it appeared that the sector was extremely unorganised. A particular locality usually had teachers for the senior classes and they were unwilling to teach junior schoolchildren. There were also ample cases where teachers were available for junior classes, but the parents were looking for a good subject teacher for their wards in the senior classes," Gaurav said. He immediately decided to get all of them on one platform.

Gaurav started his project by collecting data of existing tuition teachers in and around Bhubaneswar. They were subsequently screened to analyse their quality and experience and this helped in categorising them.

Redgraphite was promoted on social networking sites and soon many parents stared connecting to get hold of suitable tutors for their children.

"My office work ends at 8pm and despite having the urge to teach my son, I am completely drained out and get irritated when he makes a mistake. It leaves me with a sense of guilt. Although I do not appreciate the concept of private tuitions, I do not really have any other options," said Renuka Mishra, an IT employee, who sought help from Redgraphite to find the right teacher for her four-year-old son.

Explaining the process, Gaurav said: "Today, if a parent contacts us for a teacher for a particular class in a specified locality, we send them the best five teachers available to provide them demo classes. The parents can choose any one of them and discuss their respective fees. As a service provider, we are charging a one-time fee of Rs 1,000 from the parents."