Choosing the path to the right career is something that students and their parents wrack their brains about once schooling is done. Making the choice easier for them is Educrib.com, a one-stop portal which gives a bird’s eye view of colleges in India and all streams of education. With a few mouse clicks on the website, the user can select the right place to study. A startup based in Kerala, Educrib provides details of about 5,000 colleges and courses in 20 major regions in the country. This is the first product of the one-year-old Mascot Techcrib company, which has Antony George Pattara as CEO and Ajith Mathew as CTO.
The beginnings
“I hail from a financial background. After completing my graduation from St Michael’s College, Allepey, I worked for a stock broker for sometime. Shifting to a big city like Kochi led me to explore internet businesses, which were in vogue. It was the admissions season at that time. My cousins and students used to ask me for advice regarding colleges and courses. Though I admit that I wasn’t much of an expert back then, this set the ball rolling for Educrib,” narrates Antony.
The idea to start Educrib was mooted in early 2012 and Antony set up the core team in the middle of the year after which Educrib went online in December 2013. Educrib is backed by angel investors and currently has a team of 13 handling various domains such as marketing and software. Antony is also looking forward to develop a team of 30-40 members once enough funds have been raised.
“According to Google, India ranks second in education-related searches. But the veracity of information on existing education portals seems dubious and the sites are cluttered and not user friendly. Because of this, in most cases, students end up in the wrong colleges and courses. Educrib is designed exclusively to resolve this problem,” says Antony.
User-friendly search
Explaining more about the user-friendly website that Educrib is, Antony says, “Without naming anyone, I can see that a lot of our competitors’ portals are bombarded with links and therefore doesn’t come across as an appealing search engine for prospective candidates as one could get distracted and confused. We consciously did not want admission links or related URLs to appear on Educrib. Of course, this means loss of revenue, but that’s okay. Our ultimate aim is to make Educrib useful for students, as in one should get the information they want without irritating links or advertisements cropping up.”
Reliable information
With respect to content on the website about the colleges and its courses, Antony offers, “I am aware that people tend to get wary of those who claim that their information is authentic, especially when it comes to a huge sector such as higher education. At Educrib, we do put the best of efforts in that respect. We collect information from the colleges by asking them a set of questions and cross check it with them before creating a profile of the college on Educrib. We also consult with academicians about these colleges regarding their reputation and such. If it comes to our notice that there are discrepancies regarding the information we had uploaded, we take immediate steps to set things right.”
One feature, the makers highlight, is the map-based search. Also set are intelligent filters, to avoid the user getting confused because of overload of information and to allow easy browsing.
The website also features testimonials of Educrib users. The statistics the company puts forward show that in just 10 months, the site has crossed four lakh unique visitors with a daily traffic of 3,000 plus.
Having got several hits online, they recently moved another step ahead by entering the mobile app stream. Also on the anvil is a 360-degree panoramic view of colleges. The goal to be achieved by 2014-end is a list of over 15,000 colleges in more than 40 regions across India and to make a database of institutions from play schools to universities.
On the anvil
“Now, the site is among the top search results on the internet and the website has received international traffic from several other countries. We hope to attract more international attention in the next five years,” says Antony, stating that Educrib hopes to expand its boundaries to UAE, Singapore and New Zealand by also listing a portfolio of colleges in these places.
meera.manu@newindianexpress.com