Robochamps, an Edtech startup dedicated to introducing kids to early AI education, recently launched its online courses in Robotics and Coding. Available in Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, and English, the company will be providing free courses to kids in the age group of 6 to 17 living in rural areas. The company has decided to enter into the Vernacular segment owing to a sudden surge in the number of inquiries from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India post the launch of its English online courses. With less than a month of the launch of their English online courses, they received 3 million footfalls to their website. Now, with the launch of their Hindi and Vernacular courses the numbers are increasing.
Robochamps aims to use language localization as a key channel to penetrate rural and semi-urban markets in India and will soon launch the courses in other local languages. Easy to learn, these courses can be availed with just the help of the internet and smartphones. With Live Trainers and other digital methodologies, the company will help students experience hands-on practice in STEM Subjects by using Robotics. The startup will also be conducting a series of webinars to guide children in their careers and has also collaborated with likes of famous academicians such as Anand Kumar.
Akshay Ahuja, CEO & Founder, RoboChamps says, “As per market research company Kantar, India’s rural market is contributing majorly to the digital revolution, with a 45% growth in internet penetration in 2019 as compared to urban India’ s 11%. Rural India has 264 million internet users this is expected to reach 304 million in 2020. Also, the report highlights that local language content and video drive the internet boom in rural India, with a 2.5 times rise in penetration in the last four years.”
He further adds, “Internet and smartphones are being widely used by Rural India from the past couple of years. A lot of brands across sectors have made an entry through both these mediums and made an impact using language localizations. Our motto is just the same; creating young AI millenials in Rural India so they can help prevent a future pandemic. We plan to train children to make apps, Robots, and other Tech innovations that could help minimalize human interventions. With the launch of or vernacular courses, we are targeting to capture more than 150 cities across India by the year-end and reach 2 lakh students in the next 1 month.”
Harsh Kumar, son of an auto rickshaw driver in Bihar, who was recently sponsored for a year by Robochamps says, “I thank Robochamps to give me an opportunity to be able to study Robotics amid this lockdown. One day I aspire to become a Robotics Scientist and contribute actively towards the betterment of society. I look forward to connecting with my mentor cum trainers at Robochamps and learn from industry’s best. ”
The startup has been operating in a B2B offline classroom model and has a successful record in mentoring and teaching early geniuses in the field of Robotics. With the help of its team of specialized trainers, it will be educating students online through various curriculums it has been successfully using across schools.
The company’s students have been World Record Holders at the young age of 5 and have also developed many interesting robotic machines in the past and amid the lockdown to help fight the pandemic. The startup plans to contribute 20 percent of the revenues to PM Care Trust for fighting against the pandemic together. It is also offering all its courses for free to children of frontline staff to help them achieve their dreams. The brand actively takes part in contributing to social causes and has been educating children in slums to help them build a career in technology-related fields.
As per the recent report by IAMAI and Nielsen, rural India as of November 2019 had 227 million active internet users, 10% more than urban India’s 205 million users. The report highlights that the rural areas have 22.7 crore Internet users, while in urban areas, the active number of internet users is 20.5 crore. The findings also said that the country has around 71 million kids from the age group of 5-11 years who use the internet from their family members’ devices. Google’s recent report states that Hindi web consumption has grown over 90% during 2015-16 while the English content growth was only 19%.
