The idea to start Evobi came to Sandeep Senan when he was interacting with school students as part of a series of workshops that he was conducting to inform the kids about different technologies. Students showed a lot of interest in these seminars and they were asking him to teach them to build technology applications. "This made me think in the direction of creating a platform using which children can make fun technological application without any complexities involved," says Senan, Co-founder of Evobi.
Senan shared the idea with his friend Sripad Rao with whom he had previously worked with on a many projects and they felt there could be a huge market for such a platform. Senan further started exploring the market and having had good exposure with domains of virtual reality and robotics, he thought of building a rapid prototype. After finishing the prototype, the duo competed in IIM-B's Eximius 2008 Business Plan contest and they were awarded the first prize. "We got confidence and really started putting in a lot of effort in building a solid useable platform," says Senan. After their success at the prestigious B-school, beta trials of the platform were carried out in schools at Shimoga, Karnataka.
Later the young entrepreneurs got support from PES group and started operating from PES School of Engineering Campus from 2009. "After the formation of the company Evobi TechnoCentre LLP, We have interacted with teachers-parents and school management and also trained students from different background using different teaching and learning methodologies," says Senan. The company has gathered sufficient expertise in a short time as to what works best in different scenarios. "All these research paved way for Evobi's new age educational framework, which we believe is an effective way to enhance the child’s learning process without affecting the current mode of memory based learning," he adds.
According to Senan, the curriculum followed by educational institutions from primary schools to the graduate level gives more importance to theory than practical aspects. "The subject matter fails to inspire and set about a thought process which is so necessary for innovations and inventions," he says. Though, some software have helped to an extent in enabling effective learning, there is still a gap for enabling practical approaches due to the lack of effective and low cost resources. Evobi's platform 'Bi-Box' hopes to fill this gap effectively in the education system.
Bi Box Stands for Binary Intelligent Box or Brain in a Box. Bi-Box can be used with various electronic devices or toys, which can be instructed to behave in the way the users want it to. "In simpler terms, Bi-Box functions like a brain for the devices. It injects life to the toys or gadgets, which are otherwise dumb," says Senan. BiBox along with its approach of Technology Enabled Practical Science (TEPS) curriculum Evobi wants to enable students to do real world applications or experiments and connect with the theoretical concepts taught inside the classroom.
Evobi partners with schools and enables them to use its platform and execute its curriculum to enhance learning of their students in science in a playful manner. "We use different revenue models either from the students or schools for this," says Senan.
The company believes that it has an advantage over its competitors in the way it delivers its service. "Till now the focus of most of the companies in education was by using multimedia (2D/3D animations) as a means of teaching. We actually took a huge step forward in not just focusing at the teaching methods but also at the learning methods," says Senan. He believes that the platform and the curriculum uses technology not just as a simulator for the child’s thinking but actually promotes real world problem solving skills.
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