BENGALURU: The magic of GUVI started in 2011. Arun Prakash, Sridevi and SP Balamurugan had promising corporate jobs with regular paychecks, but they left their cushioned comfort and gave in to the startup fever. In case you’re wondering what GUVI stands for, it is to ‘Grab your vernacular identity’, which is exactly what the venture does.
The Chennai-based platform connects aspiring technologists with corporates and addresses the skill-gap at IT companies by providing technical learning courses in vernacular languages through individually ideated mentorship programmes.
What began as a volunteering activity while the trio was working at PayPal, made its mark in the educational sector very soon. “We started a YouTube channel where we taught students technical aspects of what we do at work in their native language. It got amazing feedback from learners across the globe. Our content got over one million hits and 5,000 subscribers,” informs Balamurugan, the CEO of the firm.
Realising the need for technical education in vernacular languages, they decided to turn the volunteering project into a full-fledged job. “People are used to physical learning and getting them used to the idea of learning online was the first hurdle we faced,” says Arun, the CTO who handles the technical aspects of the firm.
Each course by GUVI includes a series of videos with emphasis on practical-based learning, short notes, assignments and assessments. These video lectures are in vernacular languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and Kannada. The platform boasts of more than 500 technical videos, with courses ranging from C++, Java, machine leaning, data structures and more.
“Technical learning in itself is a new thing for a lot of our learners, who are mostly used to soft skills training. There is also a huge gap between the curriculum at engineering colleges and what we use in the workspace,” says Sridevi. “People are confused between studying and learning. Textbook study with no access to practical application is an issue we address,” adds Balamurugan.
The videos are created by experts in the IT industry, and the platform has grown with over 30,000 users currently. GUVI has partnered with over 50 colleges across the country, and has a range of paid and unpaid courses. The learners have an activity-based profile, which the corporate firms are privy to. The courses learned are accounted for and the percentage of completion is displayed on the student’s page. “This way, nobody can fake what they have studied. We complete the cycle, allow you to learn, showcase your progress and get recruited. This is done by filtering profiles only the best candidates that are validated through our internal tests and assessments,” informs Arun.
The trio started the company with a capital of `10 lakh, had the backing of an angel investor and was incubated by IITM’s RTBI, which rewarded them with an alumni grant of `5 lakh. “Finances were a problem, especially initially. The company started generating revenue only in 2015, which is nearly two and a half years after formation. We have stuck through our difficult phases in GUVI because we saw how many lives we were transforming through this venture,” Sridevi smiles.
According to reports by IAMAI and KPMG, the number of internet users in India who use the local language is growing at 47% annually, with over 127 million users in 2015. In a world where the majority of the population prefers to use the Internet in their native language, a platform like GUVI gives learners the much-needed push that they need.