All has not been well at Byju’s of late. India’s most valued start-up and the architect of sorts of the local edtech space has been mired in a spate of discouraging developments — layoffs at group firms, delay in closing a funding rounds and reports on links with investors with questionable identity. But Divya Gokulnath is unfazed. “If you know your intent is right, your conscience is clear and you are working towards the betterment of what you initially started out with, nothing matters. There is a lot of noise, but there is also some feedback in that noise. Feedback helps us become a better company,” she says.
Gokulnath is busy charting the growth trajectory of the company that has clocked in a valuation of $22 billion. The company tested the offline space with the launch of tech-enabled brick-and-mortar tuition centres last year, which offer a hybrid format. The aim is to increase the count from 120 to 500 within one year. The initiative has the potential to create 10,000 teaching jobs.
The firm also runs an education-for-all programme in partnership with CRY, Save the Children and American Indian Foundation. The programme, which offers free content to children from economically deprived communities, has covered around 3.4 million students in the last one year. It also joined hands with NITI Aayog in September 2021 to provide free access to its tech-driven learning programmes for children from 112 districts. — Asmita Dey