Coding the future: This start-up helps children build commercial-ready apps

Can WhiteHat Jr, a platform for childern to learn coding, establish itself in a market that is expected to grow exponentially? Abhishek Kumar explores

There is now widespread anxiety over the future of work. But amid all threats from robots, what is certain is that if a job involves creating something new, the chances of its survival are higher — the very reason coding is considered one of the futureproof skills.

And, the same reflects in the rising focus on teaching coding to children. Making this possible are a number of ed-tech start-ups, which have come out with ways to make the “highly technical” task appealing to children. One of them, WhiteHat Jr, recently raised $10 million in Series A funding led Nexus Venture Partners and Omidyar Network India. Wonder Workshop, Tynker and KidzToPros are a few others in the field.

What WhiteHat Jr does

Karan Bajaj, founder of WhiteHat Jr

Founded in November 2018 by Karan Bajaj, the start-up helps children aged between six years and 14 years build commercial-ready games, animations and apps online, using the fundamentals of coding. It has developed its own original coding curriculum, which is centred on product creation, and imparts lessons through live, interactive online classes.

 The company generates revenues from the fees for its classes. Bajaj said the price per session is around Rs 630. On the expense side, the company sees outgo through three verticals — teacher charges, cost of getting new technologies, and managing operations. Teachers’ pay, Bajaj said, varies according to the time they devote, their experience, and qualification. “Around 70 per cent of the teachers on our platform work part-time; they already have a full-time job. The rest are either fresh graduates or those who have taken a break from their IT career.”

Opportunity

Be it through a mobile phone or a computer, coding is now a part of almost everyone’s life. And our dependence on it is sure to rise in the future. As Apple CEO Tim Cook once said in an interview, “this (coding) is a language that you can (use to) express yourself to 7 billion people in the world. I think coding should be required in every public school in the world.”

This explains why most studies see coding as one of the top job delivering skills in the future. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, software developer jobs are expected to grow 17 per cent, from 2014 till 2024.  This optimism attracts more people into the profession and opens up opportunities for those engaged in teaching coding.

Further, the ed-tech industry in India is doing well, and a boom is expected by 2021. According to a 2016 KPMG report, the industry in India was worth $247 million, and could reach $1.96 billion by 2021.

The road ahead

Whitehat Jr is currently focused on the higher end of the ed-tech market. It will be interesting to see how it scales up, especially if it plans to take the product to a larger audience.

Then, there is a flip side of the high demand expectation that may be a concern for the start-up in the future. The demand-supply balance may get skewed, making it difficult for the start-up to provide quality teaching at an affordable price.

Anup Gupta, managing director, Nexus Venture Partners, says the key challenge for WhiteJar will be to maintain "high standards as the company scales". He, however, expressed confidence in the company's potential. "Whitehat Jr has very comprehensive methods to test and skill teachers, and provide them with teaching materials, programming lessons and project assistance," Gupta said.