Website creator turned edtech start-up founder outlies his future plans

Lockdown as a result of the pandemic has resulted in massive increase in the private equity investments in the edtech sector. This is led by an increased inclination of students and parents to opt for getting education from home through various learning platforms.

As the edtech sector slowly becomes one of the fastest growing industry, CIOL has roped in Siddharth Maheshwari, co-founder, Newton School to discuss where this industry is headed and how Newton School has adapted overtime.

“As a young tech enthusiast, I enjoyed most of my time creating websites that were used by tonnes of people. The world of the internet constantly made me think of the possibility of things that one could do with technology,” Siddharth said.

As I grew old, along with my education and growth, I identified the concerns of the education system in India. With this, I started spending most of my free time teaching science to students in villages, he added.

With growing competition, how can you remain profitable?

We identify so many young graduates and working professionals who are not skilled enough to be able to grab the best tech jobs. These are students who come from tier two and tier three colleges who settle for a bar that is much lower than what the industry offers. As a repercussion of the same, working professionals see limited opportunities.

Newton School is here to disrupt this norm and bring industry oriented - quality education to anyone who wants to make a career in tech. To sum up, the market needs Newton School to ensure that any student sitting in a village, town or a metropolitan in India is equipped with industry oriented tech education that revolutionizes their career.

Can you describe your programs elaborately?

While software engineering is one of the highest paying and fastest growing career paths, access to quality software development training remains limited to students of few top colleges.

Newton School comes with a flagship 6 month skill development program where students are taught full stack development. This program works on a ‘pay after placement’ model through which we are democratizing software development training and allowing people to cross financial and location barriers to achieve their dream of becoming a great software developer.

With quality education being the foundation of the courses, our platform also values skill refinement to its core. Following this, we recently launched the Grant Coding Contest that witnessed 50,000+ registrations making it one of the biggest coding contests in the world.

What type of tech and algorithms do you use?

We use Django, Python and Ruby. We also use AI to provide a better learning experience to our students. To automate evaluation, we use machine learning models and our Micro services use different languages and different frameworks.

Can you describe your business model?

Newton School (NS) works on the principles of providing higher-education that is updated with Industry-demanded skills. As the first step, we identify students with the most potential from all over India and put them through an extensive admission process spanning over two weeks in which student’s motivations and learnability is tested.

Selected students are then put through a six months program. We have a unique pay after placement model under which the students are charged zero upfront fee. We charge 15% for up to 3 years from students only when they are placed with a minimum package of five LPA.

Besides, we have recently introduced a degree programme in collaboration with MIA Digital University in Spain, which is available with the option of paying in easy instalments.

What are your views on edtech during the pandemic and can you give me your insights on the future?

In the last few years as life went into the virtual mode, connections, conversations and even commerce shifted online. Pandemic has proven instrumental in boosting the growth of the tech industry.

Companies operating in the most sought-after sectors like online education, payments, OTT, and tech-enabled staffing service are among the tech honourees on the business journal's fast 50 list. These tumultuous times have brought years-worth of changes in the way these companies deal and work.

The pandemic-induced learning crisis has necessitated reimagining of education in order to align it with the unprecedented technological transformation. The Indian ed-tech ecosystem has a lot of room for growth in terms of innovation. According to a report by NITI Aayog, the edtech industry is expected to reach $30 billion in the next ten years, fueled by rising smartphone usage and a shift to digital-learning models.

I truly believe edtech has the power to transform India, paving the way for a level playing field for education across the country with online platforms delivering the same content to urban and rural populations, thus bridging the divide more effectively than ever before.

What would you like to change about this industry?

The edtech sector in India is booming with various forms and channels of sharing knowledge. Online Education has brought added advantages of flexible learning and hybrid systems. With the growth of online education platforms and more focus on Skills, Government initiatives to solidify the accreditation of edtech platforms would furthermore help in revolutionizing in India.

In today’s world, there is a huge need to safeguard data. What steps have you taken to secure your company?

To ensure security, we have a dual token system which uses JWT and CSRF tokens. This way we ensure that users cannot see other user’s data. Moreover, we keep a tracking the type of behavior of different users, if we see bot behavior we block.

What are the recent developments at your company?

We have recently launched our degree programs in association with MIA Digital University from Spain. With our Degree programs we aim to bring opportunities and exposure to Indian homes.

The course also entails real-world, project-based learning, interaction with the international community of students and professionals and a flexible learning environment.