With a responsibility to let every child learn, Notebook comes as a digital content portal that allows children and parents to learn topics in their respective school syllabi through engaging videos and notes. The product covers all the major boards and subjects of education in India.

Notebook caters to urban, semi urban and rural markets and focuses on providing extra learning facilities for the dyslexic and visually challenged students. It includes vernacular languages to overcome regional barriers to make learning easier and efficient.

SME WORLD in an email interaction with Achin Bhattacharyya, Founder & CEO of Notebook.

Today, our life is led by technology and the curricula are more pointed towards earning more and more marks as is evident from the recent school results. In the process, the learning process has taken a big hit. Burdened with the concept 'learn to earn', the modern education system requires to be overhauled. What holds us back in designing a system that produces educated rather than literate beings? 

Education is a much wider concept than merely answering questions in some examination, and should, in no way, be confined to rote learning from text books and 'chalk and talk' in the classroom. Education should be a pathway to the overall development of an individual and it is not confined to memorising the right answers to score well in the exam. In today's digital age, when knowledge is ubiquitous, it has become far more important to develop the ability to ask the right set of thought provoking questions in our quest for truth.

Every child is special and deserves to be treated with care and compassion, all members of the civil society need to realise that a child is not a piggy bank which we are trying to fill in. She or he is a co-creator of knowledge and an active participant in our endeavour to take the society, country and civilaization forward. Today's children are tomorrow's decision makers who will decide the direction of the human race. So, it is very important that we not only generate creativity and curiosity in them but also inculcate the right set of values.

How Notebook is encouraging the process of learning?

Our motto is “Simplify to Amplify.” Very often, we unnecessarily complicate things to gorify our day jobs. Children, however, have a unique way of cutting through the irrelevant and the futile to arrive at the core. The objective is to maximise student takeaway and not to demonstrate knowledge by using fancy jargons.

A creative adult is a child who has survived. At Notebook, we believe in the fact that learning has to be an immersive and creative experience where the student has to feel enthused and happy, thus we have taken lot of care to strike a fine balance between pedagogy and content.

Our platform has engaging audio visual and written content which we have built after doing various rounds of pilot sessions with students, teachers and parents from various demographies. These are painstakingly curated for different boards. At the moment, we have started with CBSE but content for other major boards are already in the pipeline awaiting launch.

Education has a language and essence of its own and irrespective of all the fancy jargons, content has to be built bottom up, brick by brick and involves thorough research. The objective is to invoke curiosity in students so that they take interest in a particular topic and embark on the process of self learning.

With Notebook's learning mechanism, will it not clash with the classroom education?

School has a much wider role in the develoment of a student and that is not confined to academic knowledge alone, it teaches you discipline, community living, caring& sharing. It gives you friends for a lifetime who you can count on. Irrespective of its limitations in terms of not being able to customize learning paths in most cases, school will remain to be the first port of call for most students when it comes to structured formal education.

Unlike schools, which thrive on commonality, we take great pride in individuality where we facilitate and ensure that a student gets to learn at his or her own time, place and pace.

It is very important to appreciate the fact that just like adults, children also are separate individuals and thus generalising them may be grossly unfair. Our vision is to democratize the education system, wherein children from any corner of the country can get access to best-in-class education at their doorsteps.

What are the age groups/standards Notebook caters to?

As of now we are catering to students in the age group of Thirteen to eighteen i.e students from class 8 to 12, this itself is a huge segment as India has the highest number of school going children in the world. Current penetration of all the existing edtech brands taken together is below one percent, so there are no dearth of opportunities. We have just decided to put our heads down and do a good job, and let our work speak for itself.

Notebook claims to cater urban, semi urban and rural markets. Please explain.

We believe in the maxim that 'Talent is spread homogeneously'. We live in a huge country with different languages, customs, different levels of economic affluence, etc. because of which, opportunities are not uniform. Same is the case in any part of the world. Every experience that a child goes through during the growing up years has a role to play in shaping up the young mind.

At Notebook we aspire to engage with you in this beautiful journey irrespective of where you are, as each child is special and has tremendous untapped potential. We have worked on our pedagoggy to be able to strike a chord with everyone. Even during pilot, we consciously took a representative sample from different demographics and took all opinions into consideration while dishing out the final product.

Notebook is not confined to a particular device. Notebook does not need a hefty up-front payment. Notebook is not at a particular appointed time alone. Our Founding Fathers envisioned a nation of inspired youth, believing we could spread education evenly despite our diversity. Technology, particularly mobile internet, has today allowed this dream to be realised.

What kind of experts do you have for content development?

At the end of the day, we are only as good as our team and that is why we have given lot of effort in choosing a team which not only has unparalllaed academic excellence and exposure but also, more importantly, believe in the cause and has the right value system in place.

We are ably guided on the pedagogy front by eminent senior academicians. The advisory panel include the ex-Chairman of CBSE board who is with us as a Senior Advisor, an ex-Advisor to World Bank, the ex-Controller of Examinations of one of the largest state boards, parents who are regularly engaged with their children's education and a group of senior school teachers in each subject. This group spends significant time in identifying the thrust areas and devising the most lucid way of teaching them.

On the content front we have a 100-member team in place which has a wide array of skill sets and experience starting from fresh engineering and economics graduates from the most marquee institutions to veterans in this industry who have spent three four decades in education. We also work with a lot of seasoned educators including College profesors, school teachers, professional content writers etc. We also have child psychologists and recently passed out students on board.

We indeed live in a great country with so many talented people in every corner who can make a difference to many lives. As an entrepreneur my role is to join these dots to give shape to a better tomorrow.

Do you have any monitoring mechanism to gauge the progress of a child?

When we started working on the blueprint of Notebook, the first thing that we were very clear was that we want to come out of the “One shoe fits all” approach.

Hence, we not only monitor each and every activity of a student to systematically record, analyse and infer the behavarioul pattern but also work out a customized learning path for them based on the behavioural data.

Thus, we have developed our unique “Notebook learning system” which is an amalgamation of pedagogy, content, artificial intelligence, customized learning plan and regular feedback and updation of the learning plan.

What is your vision for the Indian system of education?

Last few decades have been witness to the fact that as a race we are second to none, our fellow countrymen have proudly hoisted the tri colour in every thing we have laid our hands on, IT, enterpreaneurship, space missions, cinema, diplomatic overtures or social media followings we have indeed left a mark in whatever we pusued.

Now its time that take the game even higher by ensuring that the next generation of globe trotting Indians are even more self assured and pursue endevaours which are even higher up the value chain, the world should look at us not only as back office service providers but as a powerhouse of new scientific & cultural thought leadership.

It should aim at overall development of a student including sports, literary clubs, quizzes, meditation etc.  Our education system should be India proud. It should be very modern in its outlook yet deeply routed when it comes to our traditions and value system, the only way to make the structure taller is by building a deeper foundation, the only way to grow is to deep dive to know your origin and take pride in your identity.

How affordable is Notebook learning?

As of now Notebook is completely free and we will always want the student to get a free trial window, post which the subscribers may need to avail of a paid monthly or annual subscription for single or multiple subjects depending on the plan they choose.

Affordable, monthly and subject-wise subscription is a complete game-changer in the edtech sector and only reflects our self-belief in the quality of our content.

What kind of response Notebook has evinced?

We are overwhelmed at the kind of response Notebook has got, We are one of the fastest growing edtech brands in the country, within a month and half we already have around 50,000 App downloads, however what really makes us happy is the fact that we have a daily active user base of around 10,000.We are still in the progress of broadening our base both in terms of newer boards and subjects and expect even greater response in the days to come and aspire for ten lac active users in next six months.

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- Achin Bhattacharyya is Founder & CEO, Notebook.