NexConnect (NexConnect Ventures Pvt Ltd)'s Profile
NexConnect (NexConnect Ventures Pvt Ltd)
Business Category: Education
Founding Year: 2017
Startup Stage: Revenue Generation
Support Required: Funding Mentoring Office Space
Fund requirement (): 10000000
Structure of the Company: PVT Ltd.
Website: www.nexconnectventures.com
Business Overview
Executive Summary: NexConnect Ventures Pvt Ltd is a social business venture seeking to address issues of exclusion by empowering communities and connecting them digitally. (www.nexconnectventures.com). NexConnect is a unified digital teaching-learning platform that seeks to provide a quality learning environment to every child/student in both rural and urban areas. This online learning platform aspires to ensure holistic development of students by focusing on: Formal Teaching, Grandparenting or Mentoring, Vocational Training and Counselling. NexConnect links quality senior teachers, mentors and experts with students (children/youth) through low-cost affordable interactive on-line classes using structured audio-visual content to under-served children with the help of local entrepreneurs. Their vision is to address issues of exclusion and inequality in knowledge dissemination and educational attainment by fostering exchange of knowledge between generations. Currently they Are Covering five districts of Bengal and aim to reach 10 districts by end of the year.
Market need: The Indian education sector both in private and in public sectors are laced with the following issues- Poor Learning Outcomes and Lack of Holistic Learning Environment. Poor Accessibility to Good Teachers. Lack of proper teacher training and orientation. Disparity in Rural-Urban Teaching Standards. Lack of Uniform and Structured Teaching Learning Materials. Lack of Individual Care and Support for weaker students. High Cost associated with Good Private Education Providers. Quality Teachers , Content or Teaching-Learning Environment at all levels -academic, or vocational or mentoring are barely available to the masses. our products and services are there to provide solution to this vast and under-catered population.
Product/Service description: WHAT WE OFFER THROUGH OUR DIGITAL TEACHING LEARNING PLATFORM • One-to-One/ Classroom Teaching for School Students: Academic Subjects like English, Mathematics, and Science with Board-Specific Structured Digital Course Material. • Mentoring/Grand-parenting for Holistic Development: Stories and Poems, Music, Art and Crafts, Performing Arts, World Knowledge, Value Education. • Vocational training beyond School for Young Students: Soft skills, Entrepreneurship, Agro-based training, Computer basics, Banking and finance, Handicrafts, Costume designing. • Counseling By Experts: Career counseling, Psychological counseling, Medical counseling is provided as a free benefit only for rural people and can be used by NGO’s for a nominal amount. CONTENT- STRUCTURED TEACHING LEARNING MATERIALS Board specific content on formal subjects (West Bengal, CBSCE, ICSCE boards), structured into 80 sessions per subject per class (including class assignments and home works). Also, structured contents for vocational training and grand-parenting
Customers/Users: 1. School Children (Class I to X) who cannot afford high-cost school education or tuition (from rural, semi-urban and urban spaces) 2. Young adults (age range of 20 to 39) 3. Rural WSHGs (Women Self-Help Groups) 4. Rural population who have problems with regard to access to information and expert knowledge.
Revenue Model: Franchise Based –NexConnect Internet School: Local Micro-Entrepreneurs in rural and semi-urban areas will be developed and trained to host either large classroom based up to 25 students or small classroom of 3-5 students. The revenue will be shared on a 70 -30 basis where the platform charges and teacher salary will be included. Direct: one to one or multiparty (two/three) video conferencing from the students’ home. The students will pay per class or per month. Digital content: Teaching Learning Materials for schools. Schools can choose to purchase the entire content (class I to X) or in parts as per their requirements.
Current traction: 451 STUDENTS IN 7 CENTERS
Promoters' Information
PRIYADARSHINI DEY
Director (founding member)
PRIYADARSHINI DEY
Academic Qualifications: Mphil in Sociology
Professional Qualifications: Director (founding member)
Past Experiences: She is a Senior research associate at the Social Informatics Research Group at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. She is also a Lecturer at Surendranath Law College, Kolkata. She has also taught in Calcutta International School as a senior faculty in sociology. Priyadarshini, has an Mphil in sociology from Jadavpur university Kolkata, has been a social activist since 2009 dealing with issues on safety of women and girl children, and education
ARINA BARDHAN
Director (founding member)
ARINA BARDHAN
Academic Qualifications: Masters of Sociology
Professional Qualifications: Director (founding member)
Past Experiences: She studied Sociology from St. Xavier’s College Kolkata (Bachelors) and University of Hyderabad (Masters). She had worked with Cancer Foundation of India, a NGO based in Kolkata in a Research Project on Tobacco Control Project, India for a year. Currently she is working as Senior Research Associate with Social Informatics Research Group, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
SOMPRAKASH BANDYOPADHYAY
PROFESSOR (Mentor)
SOMPRAKASH BANDYOPADHYAY
Academic Qualifications: PhD
Professional Qualifications: PROFESSOR (Mentor)
Past Experiences: He is a professor and Research Director of Social Informatics Research Group at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta with over three decades of international and domestic experience in R&D of emerging technologies and their commercial applications. He was a fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany and fellow of the Japan Trust International Foundation. He is PhD in Computer Science, and B.Tech. in Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
JAYANTA BASAK
Director
JAYANTA BASAK
Academic Qualifications: Pursuing PhD
Professional Qualifications: Director
Past Experiences: He works in the area of design and development of Social Information Systems to harness the potential of crowd knowledge, making them available to the community and empowering the communities to interact, collaborate and participate and transforming the way they live, learn and work. He has around 7 years of experience in software industry and academics.
