Avishkaar Box's puzzles to give children hands-on experience of robotics

Belonging to a family of entrepreneurs, Tarun Bhalla says it took him 565,440 hours to become one himself. A computer science graduate working at Microsoft in the US back in 2006, he wanted to transform the way education is imparted in Indian schools by igniting creativity among children.

“The new-age parent has become aspirational. Artificial intelligence and virtual reality have become buzzwords. Every parent wants his/her child to be ready for robotics. As a parent, I too want my daughters to be innovative,” says Bhalla, founder of Avishkaar Box, an ed-tech start-up sparking innovation in young minds.

Bhalla, a tinkerer himself, believes the Indian education system was designed to kill creativity. In the absence of an innovative curriculum, he took the challenge to create an engaging educational experience for children.

Founded with the goal to strengthen primary and elementary education, Avishkaar boxes come loaded with puzzle pieces, nuts and bolts to give children hands-on experience of robotics. Students can build robots from scratch, which encompasses creativity, innovation, teamwork and patience. The company claims to develop products that make learning meaningful, joyful and insanely addictive.

Avishkaar Box recently raised Rs 50 million in pre-series A funding from Auxano Deals. On an expansion spree, the start-up plans more hiring and investing in marketing for better visibility.

Since the company runs on a channel-partner model, it focusses mostly on the curriculum and fine-tuning of its products. “We follow a B2B (business-to-business) model, where our partners buy in bulk and contact schools for the sale of products. This gives us a free hand to focus on increasing the depth of our products and keep up the pace with the ever-changing robotics,” says Bhalla.

After the launch of Atal Tinkering Labs in 2017, which provided a grant of ~2 million each to 2,500 schools to boost scientific temperament, the market for Avishkaar Box like products has expanded by Rs 5 billion. Bhalla says the announcement was a breakthrough moment for the start-up as it was already working with young minds for the past six to seven years. 
 

Since then, Avishkaar Box has successfully set up Atal Tinkering Labs in more than 80 schools across the country. It claims to hold 15 per cent of the market share in India and is planning to scale it up to 25 per cent by the end of FY18. 

Generating a revenue of Rs 80 million, the company looks to break even this year. Networking with over 400 schools, Bhalla’s brainchild has sold 10,000 robotic kits and aims to treble it by next year.

Creating an ecosystem that would sustain the buyers, he says the company is working on a ‘social robot’ for grade 2-4 students. He will continue tweaking the product until Avishkaar Box becomes a household name.