InOpen, Tata ClassEdge tie up for education programme

InOpen Technologies, a start-up incubated at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay, is partnering Tata ClassEdge, a provider of technology-enabled educational solutions for schools. As part of the tie-up, Computer Masti, InOpen’s flagship computer science programme, will be offered across all 1,600 Tata ClassEdge schools.

InOpen focuses on developing quality academic content through research. The company was incorporated in October 2009 and incubated at IIT-Bombay’s Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Through its products, it caters to about 600,000 students across 350 schools. InOpen also works with the information technology literacy solutions of various government and corporate organisations.

Rupesh Kumar Shah, co-founder and chief executive of InOpen, said the company had received partnership proposals from major educational companies. He added the company had chosen Tata ClassEdge, as it had a good brand name and wide presence across schools. “Initially, we want to target a third of the schools and try to reach about 2,000 in the next three-four years, through this tie-up,” he said.

He added that InOpen will retain the majority portion of the revenue, while Tata ClassEdge will retain a portion of it. The branding of Computer Masti will also remain intact.Computer Masti consists of a graded text book, with the support of teacher training and assessments and is available for students in Class I to Class VIII. All programmes and content are presented in a narrative format through two child characters - Tejas and Jyoti. Colourful pictures, worksheets and interactive lessons are an inherent part of the textbook for each level.The lessons are based on free and open source software. The Computer Masti toolkit can be installed on commonly used operating systems.

Nirav Khmabati, chief executive of Tata ClassEdge, said both InOpen and Tata ClassEdge shared the same educational philosophy —teaching-learning should be active, participatory and skills-oriented.