"India has a monopoly in the e-learning space"

Jay Sitaram met Maurice Haeems while pursuing his graduation at VJTI in Mumbai. Sitaram enrolled for his MBA course at Wharton School of Business, and subsequently teamed up with Haeems to launch Mentorix -- an e-learning company — in 2001. The concept of e-learning was not yet popular in Indian market, but Sitaram went all out and turned Mentorix into a success. Two years later, Lionbridge Technologies bought out the company for approximately $21 million. Sitaram joined Lionbridge as a general manager & vice president (India). But, he was itching for adventure again, so he quit Lionbridge Mentorix and founded Praxis Technologies with Haeems (again).

Praxis is an e-learning company with a slight difference; it is more inclined towards simulations-based or gaming-based learning. Thus it is not in direct competition to other e-learning heavyweights like Tata Interactive, Lionbridge or Hurix. Will Sitaram strike it rich second time round? Is a question in everyone's mind. Sitaram spoke to Shashwat Chaturvedi from CyberMedia News, on the state of e-learning industry in general and his latest venture in specific.

Excerpts.

How big is the e-learning market in India?

From an outsourcing perspective, the market is fairly large and growing at a healthy rate. International clients are outsourcing work to India, a lot of work, namely content conversion from one medium to another. Close to 80 per cent of work done by Indian companies is basically content conversion, i.e., turning an academic course to an e-learning one, etc.

The whole market is driven by corporates and government sector keen to bring about uniformity in the internal training and save costs. There is a lot of scope for innovative and R&D projects. Praxis specializes in this space. We are into R&D, we want to build courses from scratch, and not be mere programmers. Tapping the intellectual power of the Indian mind is going to be the next big wave.

How does the Brand India compare to rest of the e-learning countries?

Frankly speaking in e-learning, I really don't think there is any other brand. Ireland used to develop some courses for captive users, there is some flash programming work done in countries like Russia, Czech Republic, Poland, etc. But for most part in the learning market, if the work is not being done in the U.S. or the U.K., it is being done here. In the IT space, there is competition for India's dominance, but in e-learning we have a monopoly!

The literacy rate in India is hovering around the 50-60 per cent mark, don't you think that India could be a good domestic market for e-learning?

I agree, there is a great opportunity that is waiting to be exploited. But the domestic market for e-learning is not exploding due to many reasons, technical, etc. One of the chief reasons is the low level of computer penetration in India. Then, there is the case for dismal Internet penetration and bandwidth issues. It is going to take some time before we get there. When John Chambers said that e-learning would be the next big thing after email, we haven't quite got there. But with the talk of sub-Rs.10, 000 PCs, the signs are encouraging.

Electronic learning is going to explode in the next few years for people in continual education. Say if you have Internet access in a remote village, education can be disseminated via e-learning. In fact, some institutes are running good e-learning courses already.

What are the innovations taking place in the e-learning space?

Gaming is big, big thing. Learning through gaming can be a truly amazing experience for the user, for instance, if I can figure out a way to teach you Mathematics through cricket, then you will learn faster than the traditional classroom approach. The next great thing is going to be simulations-based learning.

Views on m-learning

It is a very interesting concept; it is already being used quite a bit in the medical field in the U.S For instance, doctors in the U.S., constantly use their mobiles for latest information while treating their patients. We are doing some gaming pilots for m-learning, all devices are converging on the mobile and hence m-learning has a lot of promise.

Promotion of e-learning in India

Sadly, most of the players in India spend more time battling each other. We often go to e-learning forums in the US to get customers. We are not sharing of ideas across companies, I don't know whether Wipro and Infosys sit across the table and talk to each other. But it may be useful to us, to get together as a group and brainstorm as to what is good for the industry. People in the industry seem to be more focused on their operations trying to eek out a decent living.

What are your reasons for floating another e-learning company, were there any issues at Lionbridge?

None at all, Lionbridge is a great company. It is just that as an entrepreneur I felt the itch, more to do with the thrill of doing it all over again. It is also easier this time, as the market has matured on the whole, when the industry grows everyone prospers. On the other hand, being a startup you need to worry about all the things an established player doesn't. It was just that. Also, I wanted to test myself, whether I can achieve it all over again.