As parents, Bengaluru-based Anurag Gopinath and Prasanna Kaliamoorthy found that communications from schools to students and parents were scattered on multiple platforms -- paper circulars, student diary, SMS, WhatsApp, email, Facebook, blog, website etc.
They felt each of these methods has a number of problems: paper circulars could get misplaced; messages on SMS, WhatsApp, emails etc could get lost amongst clutter of trivia; and parents could lose interest in blogs and websites when they aren’t constantly updated.
To set this right, the two engineers began working on a simple and convenient platform by making use of the available smartphone technologies, and came up with SkoolBeep.
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The app became functional in April 2015, and is being used by more than 100 educational institutions. It was selected by Nasscom for its 10,000 Startups programme in February this year. It was also among the five startups that were showcased by Nasscom at Invest Karnataka 2016 meet.
Multiple features
The app, which is available on Android, iOS and the web, can be used by schools as well as parents; the features are enabled differently for different logins.
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“There are options to share multimedia files like audio, video and pictures; track school bus; publish report cards; announce holidays; set reminders and alerts; deliver newsletters (in both PDF and doc formats) etc. Teachers can mark attendance of students easily, and if needed, an alert can be sent to the parents,” said CEO Anurag Gopinath.
The system has been formatted in such a way that schools can send messages to one or many parents simultaneously, while parents’ reply will go only to the school, he said.
While Anurag Gopinath is an alumnus of NIT, Kozhikode, COO Prasanna Kaliamoorthy is from NIT, Rourkela. They both combined have more than 30 years of experience, which includes tenure in MNCs like Texas Instruments, Broadcom and over 15 years in multiple startups.
Mobile-first solution
"Every sector has tapped on to the potential of smartphones to make themselves productive and efficient. It is now the turn of educational institutions," said Mr. Gopinath.
Speaking of the key differentiators of SkoolBeep, Mr. Gopinath said, "This is a mobile-first unified solution that integrates all communication between the school and the parents. Schools can know who have read and who haven't read the messages. Those who haven't read can be contacted so that they don't miss the important communication. Also, the phone-based calendars and reminders ensure that children don't forget or miss school events." SkoolBeep competes with apps like Myly, The Uolo, AppAlert, etc.
He said the multiple features of the app are beneficial to both parents and schools. “While on the one hand the app enables parents to remain updated about the school activities and welfare of their wards, on the other hand the school can make use of the app to raise the brand value of their institution through its communication with the parents,” he said.