Hello. Is there anybody in there? Just Nod If You Can Hear Me*

Well, it’s been quite a while since this blog was updated, so I thought I’ll check if any of you is still around! Pardon us, for we’ve been busy cooking up a few interesting items that we’ll be showcasing to you in the coming days. And we also promise that we’ll post more often and share our learnings, experiences and what we’re doing towards revolutionizing how education is being delivered (in our own small ways).

Over the last few months, we have been mentioned in some of the leading publications of the country and also got recognized for the work we’re doing. It’s very nice when such attention and recognition comes our way. It pushes us to do more, better!

In case you missed it, we were featured in the Independence Day Special edition of Young Turks on CNBC TV18 as one of the impactful startups in the education space. Here’s the video:

The recent issue of Forbes India magazine has featured us in the ‘Check-in’ section. The article is accompanied by a very interesting infographic that compares our solution CourseHub with other solutions/technologies and lays out the advantages in a very simple and effective manner. That goes right into our marketing arsenal! You can read the article here – Aurus Network’s Cloud-Based Online Courses.

Aurus Network’s solution CourseHub compared with other solutions/technologies. (Image Credit: Forbes India)

Oh, and Diwali celebrations reached us a little ahead of time as we were recognized as among the NASSCOM Emerge 50 companies.

NASSCOM Emerge 50 Awards program annually identifies showcases and supports Top 50 highly innovative and agile Emerging & Start-up companies that are foraying into untapped territories and redefining the way IT can make a difference.

We’re among the winners in Emerge 40 segment in the Start-up category. You can see us and the other winners here (you’ll need to scroll down the page). A very nice Diwali gift, isn’t it? And we also celebrated Diwali with an Ethnic Day celebration in the office. Here are some photos:

Happy Diwali!

Office Decoration – 1

Office Decoration 2

But where’s everyone?

Diwali Feast!

Enjoying the sumptuous lunch!

We wish (slightly belated, but nonetheless) all our followers and well-wishers a very happy Diwali and look forward to your continued support and encouragement.

* While we’re Pink Floyd fans for sure, we’re definitely not in a Comfortably Numb state. What else, then? High Hopes, for sure. Money, oh yes!

The Online Education Wave in India.

Indians are tech savvy – we gobble up any new technology or gadget that is thrown at us. Indians are also known best for coming up with ad-hoc solutions to problems with available resources. What happens when you put the two together? Volatility in every aspect of our lives as we absorb and adapt to new ways of doing things – be it banking, shopping or running a million dollar industry!

Same holds true in the field of education as well. Lately our educators have begun to welcome technology of all sorts into their classrooms. Visual aids are used for teaching, online-tests are used for assessing students and a lot of people are reaching out to far flung ‘virtual’ or ‘online’ students using video streaming technology.

The concept of ‘Distance Delivery of Education’ is very popular now. It is extremely relevant too. There are several entrance examinations – JEE, UPSC, CA and others these days. And there are several more training institutes and teachers offering courses to students to help them prepare for these exams. This market is very huge and a lot of educators are looking to expand their education business. One easy way to do this is by offering ‘Online’ classes.

The idea is simple. The teachers stay in their own city or locality. They record whatever they teach using technology of various sorts. And they share this content (either live or on-demand) via Internet with students who may hail from any other corner of the country! This breaks all geographical barriers – popular teachers can now expand their student enrollment rates in no time.

There has been a sharp increase in the number of people/Institutes who have gone ‘online’ lately. Which is not a surprise, considering the number of advantages this technology offers. It would be a surprise, though, if you are an educator and you have not considered this option. What are you waiting for? Get on to and ride the Online Education Wave!

Role of Cloud in Education Sector

Jaya Jha, Head of Product & Marketing at Aurus, writes about “Role of Cloud in Education Sector” in CXO Today.

SaaS is an answer to many problems educational institutes face in adopting technology. Cloud hosted SaaS products do not require on-premise deployment of IT infrastructure. This makes the upfront infrastructural costs very low or even zero. Using SaaS also means that here is no ongoing infrastructure management required as the management of cloud-based server is taken care of by the software provider. The software provider benefits from scale as his infrastructure is being used by many customers. The benefit is passed on the customers in the form of lower and usage-based ongoing costs. A huge benefit comes from on-demand, and practically infinite scalability of SaaS products. You can start as small as you want and grow as large as you can.

Read the complete article here.

Educomp might be dead, education is not!

Jaya heads Product & Marketing for Aurus Network. Her thoughts on the potential of technology offerings for Education Market.

Miles to go...

The fateful Forbes article, if you go by the dysphoria, seems to have sealed the fate of all education-related startups. They are all doomed. Why? Because e-learning is dead! Why? Because Educomp is in trouble.

I hope when I put it that way, the ridiculousness of the tremors in investor, startup and media community becomes a little more obvious. Fine! Educomp has been the poster-boy of education and e-learning in India. But if Yahoo! being in trouble has not meant that Internet, online content and online advertising are dead. Educomp being in trouble can hardly mean that the business of education is dead.

What these FUD-rumour-mongers need to do it is to come down from their pedestal, stop taking a 100,000 ft high view of things and get into some nuances and bother their heads with some details. If we go by the article, Educomp’s troubles seem two-fold:

1. It…

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