The clock struck noon and the ballroom of Le Meridien in Kochi started filling up with school students. A few hours earlier on March 22, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had inaugurated #FUTURE, a two-day conference to discuss ‘Towards a digital future’ — organised by the government of Kerala — with a power-packed lineup of speakers like Nandan Nilekani and Raghuram Rajan. So why so many students? They were there to listen to a man who has become a screen-friend to millions around the country.

Byju Raveendran has disrupted the digital learning space with BYJU’S — The Learning App, a brand from Bangalore-based Think and Learn Pvt Ltd. The app has already been downloaded more than 15 million times and in March the company reached unicorn status, having crossed $1 billion in estimated worth.

t2 caught up with the 38-year-old math whiz on the sidelines of #FUTURE in Kochi.

What made you start BYJU’S? 

I never planned to start this as a business; I just pursued my passion and capitalised on my strengths, it later turned out to be a business. When you are creating a new segment, it’s important to compete with yourself and strive to do better every day. 

When you do what you like and are passionate about it, you get motivated on your own. I am an engineer by chance, teacher by choice, which I realised after I started to teach. Because of the impact it made, it has become a business today. BYJU’S is built around pure passion — we are constantly innovating on how to make learning more engaging, effective and personalised.

For me, the real fun is not in creating a billion-dollar company but changing the way millions of students learn. 

You grew up in a village. How did you find motivation?

I started my journey from a small village called Azhikode in the Kannur district of Kerala. Contrary to what most people think of as a disadvantage, being from a small place has been a great boon for me as I landed up learning everything and anything on my own. For example, I studied in a Malayalam-medium school but learnt English by listening to cricket commentary and playing games helped me strategise and learn on my own. 

Growing up in a close-knit society which emphasises and believes in the importance of doing things together has also helped me a lot as an entrepreneur. The strong social fabric of my community has empowered me to capitalise on my strengths. I think coming from a small place also gives you the courage to trust people blindly. Based on this trust and confidence, the teams at BYJU’S have been built and the same runs throughout my teams. 

The present education system tends to spoon-feed. What changes would you like to see?

India has the largest school-going population with 260 million students. However, students are still getting trained to solve questions and not encouraged to find problems or to ask questions. In India, learning is driven by the fear of exams rather than the love of learning. The focus has been on spoon-feeding and rote memorisation, rather than encouraging children to learn on their own. 

The challenge has always been around changing the perception about how children should learn. The current challenges can easily be addressed by using technology. As our country gets more tech savvy, technology-enabled education will change the way learning is approached by students. Online learning is not just offline learning taken online by simply digitising content; technology is used extensively to make learning better and more effective online. 

Technology has helped us innovate the way subjects are being taught, and also personalise it based on the capability of the student. At BYJU’S, we are constantly working on making learning accessible, engaging, effective, meaningful and personalised for everyone. 

In conventional classroom learning, access to quality teachers, personalisation of learning has always been an issue as it is a very exam-focused approach. Integrating technology in education not only increases engagement but also simplifies the way students learn. 

Teachers now have access to varied tools and technology to make learning more interesting and impactful for students. This adds a whole new dimension in the way teaching and learning takes place. For example, explaining ‘how soundwaves are created’ is easy when a teacher explains the concept with the help of interactive tools made possible by technology. 

Mathematics is very special to you…

Looking back, I believe I was personally able to do well in mathematics and other subjects due to the learning methods that I developed independently. Being an avid sportsperson in my childhood, I spent a lot of time away from classes. Inevitably, I had a lot of catching up to do with my studies! That was when I first learnt to develop my own learning methods. This mostly hinged on trying to visualise techniques to understand the concepts better. I approached exams like I played games, turning it into a fun and exciting learning experience. 

Math is a highly logical and objective-driven subject with most of the concepts being interrelated. One of the major reasons there is such a strong perception against the subject is because of the way it is being taught to students, which is quite abstract and bookish. It eventually confuses and scares children. Love of math can be achieved by moving away from the numerical approach and adapting a more visual approach while teaching concepts.

When do we get to see BYJU’S in regional languages and overseas? 

This year, we are focusing on going deeper in India There will be a strong focus to further accelerate our reach and create awareness in deeper parts of India. We are creating learning programmes in vernacular languages. This will help us reach out to a wider set of students from across regions. Since the launch of our app in 2015, it has seen great adoption and has successfully forayed beyond the metro cities in India. 

Today, almost 75 per cent of our users come from outside the top 10 cities. It is encouraging to see increased adoption from 1,700+ towns and cities in the country, but there is still a long way to go before we call this a learning revolution. Currently, we have reached out to less than 2 per cent of the total student population in India only. 

We are also in the process of building a product for international markets. Our core focus is on getting the K3 (1st, 2nd and 3rd grades) product ready for launch by October this year. For our global product, we looked for acquisitions (abroad) but did not find a perfect fit. Hence, we decided to build the product for the global audience in-house. We are working with some of the most popular YouTube teachers who are experts in their own domains. We are getting them to India to record and help us with product development too.

Mathures Paul
I like BYJU’S because.... Tell t2@abp.in