The 10 Best EdTech Companies Across the Globe 2020.

2020 | VOL-11 | ISSUE-04
THE
1BEST
ED-TECH
COMPANIES
ACROSS GLOBE
2020

EDITOR’S NOTE
MAKING ONLINE
LEARNING FUN
AND INTERACTIVE
ombining education and technology to make
Clearning easy for students has not been a new
thing. EdTech companies have been around since
quite some time with digitalisation entering into the
education sphere and consequently changing the
education landscape.
EdTech companies have redefined how students learn
and have simplified learning through Apps. The EdTech
companies have diversified and percolated into various
related sectors of education, viz, training or coaching
professionals and employees at all levels. The pandemic
has only increased the demand for EdTech companies
more than ever before.
The United States of America has the largest number of
EdTech companies in the world followed by India,
according to reports of several surveys. With the help of
number of Apps suitable for all age group of students
and professionals these EdTech companies are bridging

the gap between theoretical knowledge and
practical skills. These Apps also help the student
think on his or her own before seeking help from
the tutor.
The edupreneurs behind these learning solutions
are generally young enterprising minds. These
companies were booming long before the Corona
pandemic shook the entire human race from its
inertia. Now, the need for such online learning has
become more pronounced. Some of the schools
have tied up with EdTech companies in the recent
past. The pandemic has thrown lot of challenges
but also created lot of opportunities for the
sector to improve, grow and sustain since the
need for online education and distance learning
have grown at an unprecedented rate.
The 10 Best EdTech Companies Across the
Globe 2020.
For the cover story we have Ouriginal that checks
plagiarism by combining text-matching system
with author recognition. This makes it unique in
checking plagiarism and thus stand apart from its
counterparts in the competitive market.
We have also featured CoachHub that is coaching
employees at all career levels, EarlySalary that is
changing the way loans are taken in India and few
others. Do read the articles curated by our inhouse
editorial team and CXO standpoint as you
flip through the pages of the magazine.
Have a great read! T R
The EdTech sector will continuously evolve with
constant newer technological advancements.
On this backdrop, we at The Knowledge Review,
have come up with some of the brilliant
companies in this sector, in our latest edition -
Sumita Sarkar
sumita@theknowledgereview.com

The Complete Originality Check
08
Cover Story
Article
26
Tech Talk
The age of
autodidacts:
Technological
revolution in
education

CXO
CONTENTS
24
Healthy Vibes
The Importance
of Positive
Teacher-Student
Relationship
INTERVIEW
EarlySalary
Ushering in an Era
of Digital
Transformation in
Fin-Tech and
Money Lending
CoachHub
Enabling Personalized
Coaching for Employees
at all Career Levels
30 18

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NOVEMBER, 2020
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Name of the Institution
URL
Brief
THE 10 BEST
COMPANIES
ACROSS THE GLOBE 2020 T R
Andela
Coach Hub
andela.com
coachhub.io
Building remote engineering teams that work
to construct and manage high performing
teams
Enabling organizations to create a
personalized, measurable, and scalable
coaching program for the entire workforce
EarlySalary
earlysalary.com
An innovative money lending platform that
aims to change the way loans are taken in
India.
Edunguru
edunguru.com
Offering the best online education courses for
preparing for IIT, NEET, SSC, UPSC
FutureLearn
futurelearn.com
Teaching new skiils online with world-class
universities and industry experts
iPortfolio
iportfolio.co.kr
Transforming the way people learn and teach
English
KUBO Robotics
kuboeducation.cn
Ensuring that students or teachers who do not
understand technology can learn
programming easily and happily
Ouriginal
plagscan.com
Checkimg plagiarism by combining a textmatching
system with author recognition
Qridi
qridi.
A disruptive pedagogical tool that has power
to transform learning from passive to active
Sana Labs
sanalabs.com
The global leader in the development and
application of AI for learning
Voxy
voxy.com
An innovative digital English language solution
that has been used successfully by hundreds of
organizations around the world

Cover Story
“
BRINGING
MORE
TRANSPARENCY
IN DETECTING
PLAGIARISM
“

The Complete Originality Check
THE 10 BEST
COMPANIES
ACROSS THE GLOBE 2020 T R

“
What sets Ouriginal apart from its counterparts is
that it combines a text matching system with
author recognition.” – Andreas Ohlson, Chief
Executive Officer of Ouriginal.
With too much information available at the click of a mouse
or a touch on your smart phone, plagiarism just cannot be
ruled out. Despite the Copyright Act and Intellectual
Property Rights Act in place, gross violations of these have
been noticed.
Advancements in technology led to the advent of software
systems and apps that could check for plagiarism in a
content. This made it easy to detect the ‘copy-paste’ matter
in any text.
And while there are many software programmes or apps
that detect plagiarism, Ouriginal came up with a unique
plagiarism detection and prevention system. It combines a
text-matching system with author recognition. This
innovative technology is aimed at providing fairness and
help people assert their originality.
The combination of Urkund and PlagScan gave rise to
Ouriginal, and its users ranging from corporates, to
individuals to education institutes and universities worldwide
can vouch for its efficacy and reliability.
Urkund was founded in the year 1999 and PlagScan in
2009. They joined hands this year with a common goal and
founded Ouriginal.
“Ouriginal was born out of two companies that not only
developed equally good, cutting-edge plagiarism detection
software but were also driven by the same goals and core
values. Both Urkund and PlagScan were established by
people that came from an educational background and
discovered the need to protect something that is
increasingly endangered by modern technologies: the
freedom of every student to develop their full potential by
original thinking and creative writing. This is the reason
why we developed a solution to help teachers save time
while correcting student’s exam papers and to safeguard
Academic Integrity and the quality of education,” shared
Ohlson.
Ouriginal offers wide benefits for both new and existing
customers: together, they are bigger and better in many
aspects. By choosing the best solution and processes from
both companies across all departments, they are confident
of delivering ‘best of breed’ performance in many facets.
Also, by combining the technologies of these two
companies, they plan to optimize their existing products
into one solution that exceeds the performance and
functionality of both single products.
To cut it short, together, they can address the needs of the
market as well as existing customers when, and how they
require it in the best possible way.
The Inspiration Behind the Concept of the Company
Ouriginal wants to provide an environment in which
fairness sparks personal development and enables people to
strengthen their original voice.
The company strongly believes that every human has great
potential that just waits to be unlocked and developed. Yet
sometimes, insecurities, stress, anxiety, or simply life get in
the way and people tend to use short cuts.
Using Ouriginal will help one assess any type of text for
their authenticity and tackle questions of academic integrity
at any institution. In addition, by using our solutions,
educators and other users will save precious time to focus
on their real work.
Ouriginal aims to:
• Help students learn the right methodology to prevent
unintentional plagiarism
• Ensure schools and universities stay respected institutions
that provide highly relevant degrees
• Support businesses to validate their content and guarantee
its authenticity
On why the company is called ‘Our’iginal, Ohlson said,
“Because we believe that promoting and developing
original thinking is not just the responsibility of a single
person, of one single parent, one single teacher, professor,
or mentor. Unlocking people’s full potential is actually
OUR responsibility and our goal.”
Exhibiting Quality
Ouriginal is a text-matching software that can assess the
authenticity and originality of any given text. This software
is often used as plagiarism prevention in education
institutions or as an authenticity solution in corporations. It
can easily and seamlessly be integrated into already existing
workflows and processes, either through a learning
management system (LMS) or as a stand-alone solution.
With its feedback and digital examination capabilities, it
offers a state-of-the-art solution to meet the requirements of
an increasingly digitized education landscape.

Being in the business for over 20 years, Ouriginal has
gained lot of insights into the market - and especially to the
needs of educators. Cutting-edge technology such as
machine learning algorithms allows training its software to
get smarter every time a text is analysed.
In the near future, ghost-writing detection and crosslanguage
text matching will be some of the new features.
Redefining the future of the ed-tech sector
Currently, education itself is redefining Ed-Tech and its
future – accelerated by the pandemic. This removes the
stigma of Ed-Tech as a niche market. Before the ‘new
normal’, digital solutions were perceived as a ‘nice-to-have’
add-on to courses and processes within an educational
organization.
Nowadays, digital and personalized learning tools like that
of Ouriginal, are becoming essential. They are now not only
important as a tool to enable online courses through a new
medium but are also needed to ensure institutional quality
control. This is a major shift and Ouriginal is playing a vital
role in this. With the exponential growth in demand for
Ed-Tech solutions, the company will be enabling new ways

of learning and teaching in a new, digitized world.
Growing and Sustaining
Ouriginal has been able to grow and sustain in the everchanging
market by being adaptive and flexible in an
industry that can be complex and rigid at times. And by
putting its customer’s needs above all. To ensure it sustains
its position and keep challenging the status quo, it decided
to join forces and further establish one true European
heavyweight on the Ed-Tech market.
With their combined expertise of over 30 years in the
industry, Ohlson is very confident that they are well aligned
to react to developments that lay in front of them. The
company boasts of an extremely talented and hard-working
team behind Ouriginal from extremely diverse
backgrounds, ready to tackle the future.
Staying at the Top with ‘Ouriginality’
Ouriginal originated from two relatively small companies.
Both companies were very customer-centric and driven to
excel in customer satisfaction. Being small, both companies
could react very quickly, agilely, and efficiently to
customer’s wishes, needs, and demands. This has been the
company’s legacy, and this is what Ouriginal continues to
do: Treating customers with respect and really caring about
them.
Proof for that can be found in every aspect of the customer
journey and user experience. Ouriginal offers a sustainable
and transparent business model that works well for
customers financially and is easy to understand and
forecast. The development of its features is not driven by
what its engineers could develop to make the company look
super-techy, but what the customers really need. The
company’s thumb-rule is to listen, learn and implement.
To enable customers to easily integrate the services into
existing workflows and processes, the company focuses on
developing reliable partnerships and support integrations.
Also, with its truly European roots, it firmly believes that
protecting user data should be one of its core
responsibilities. Their solution is - it is up to the customer to
do with their data whatever they want: Store it, archive it,
or delete it – whenever they want.
The customers help to keep the balance between product
diversification and adapting to the evolving global
education landscape while safeguarding originality in all its
different shades.

Andreas Ohlson, Chief Executive Officer of
Ouriginal has a long history and proven track
record in the Ed-Tech industry, starting way
back in 2004 when he was in charge of
operations at PrioInfo, the then market-leading
Nordic distributor for digital distribution of
content working with most of the leading
publishers. He has been CEO since 2007 and
has been responsible for developing Urkund
from a small Nordic player into a market
leader in a sustainable and responsible way.
Overcoming Adversities
Ohlson emphasises that they are here because they had
the chance to develop into what they are today. They
were given the chance; they have had the stamina and
perseverance to get exactly here. What else does one
really need than knowing that one could give others
exactly the same opportunities with what one does?
As former niche players in the plagiarism prevention
market, it was and is the company’s driving force to
safeguard integrity while inspiring originality - by
listening to its customers. Every time educators provide
feedback to them that Ouriginal’s tool made their life
better, easier, and saves them tons of time. That is what
drives the company to perform better. It’s the many
success stories that keep the company moving
successfully and the fact that its software is such an
integral and essential part of academic life that it is part
of comedy videos on YouTube and in some parts even
thought of as a governmental institution.
By combining the strengths of Urkund and
PlagScan, he is now establishing a company
with global presence and influence. His
expertise from leading one the biggest
Contact Centre operations in Sweden, where
he delivered state-of-the-art customer service
to both B2C and B2B publishers, is definitely a
great asset in creating a global heavyweight
within the Ed-Tech industry.
Andreas has seen many technology shifts
during his career and has managed to tackle
these along with the skilled development
team. This will help Ouriginal immensely to
stay at the forefront, especially now in times
where we see a transformation and real shift of
education globally towards digitalization.
Latest Developments and Staying at Pace with Them
The pandemic has of course had a huge impact on how
education is managed and distributed. From the
company’s perspective, they have seen a massive
increase in usage since plagiarism detection is even more
important when students are working from home and not
sitting in a classroom. Ouriginal believes that this will
accelerate a change where distance and remote learning
will be more common, especially in higher education.

This will demand the customers to find better solutions to
craft for their needs and Ouriginal wants to be a part of this
conversation to understand what it needs to improve or
develop. In this backdrop, it has already started a project
where it interviews quite a few of its customers in different
regions to understand better the challenges they face and
based on the outcome of that Ouriginal assumes that a
number of activities will follow to stay at pace.
Foresight about Ed-Tech
There are predictions that in 2025, the Ed-Tech industry
will already overtake the healthcare industry by revenue.
The Earth’s population is growing, technologies are
developing further – and why should people not get the
chance to learn? This is a huge opportunity, but also a big
responsibility for a company like Ouriginal.
Especially in the light of the pandemic, the company
notices that education per se, as well as its demands for
digital solutions, has changed and increased tremendously.
With the ‘forced’ demand of higher education for distance,
online and blended learning during the times of the
pandemic, educators are forced to face a digitized reality in
their classrooms. They needed to get accustomed to a new
normal in terms of teaching and online learning, and this
has already changed their mindset regarding digitized
learning.
According to Ouriginal, there will be a huge increase in
online classes and degrees from universities across the
globe. Students will not need to go abroad to study for a
degree. They can, for example, continue to live in
Stockholm and get a degree from a university in Australia.

Ohlson is convinced that within a timeframe of 5-10 years, the
educational landscape worldwide will have changed
profoundly. This will also have a great impact on the company
as a technology and solution provider. Here, the relationship
with the customers will be crucial. He believes that only if they
listen to the demands of the customers in terms of new products
and solutions, they will be able to serve the market and
education as before. And this is exactly what Ouriginal is
planning to do.
Future Goals
In the short-term, the company’s focus is to merge its
companies both from an organizational and a product
perspective. This is of course a challenge, especially since the
world is in the middle of a pandemic, with high usage of
Ouriginal’s product and many new customers. It helped that
both companies shared the same ambition and goals while
embarking on this project. It is their firm belief that when they
have finalized this stage, they will have an organization and a
product ready to serve and support their current and new
customers even better.
In the longer-term, the company’s aim is to use its combined
talent to improve its core product, use technology to find new
areas of application - either on their own or together with their
partners from within the Ed-Tech sector. They are striving to
build joint products that provide their users with enhanced
workflow, improved user experience, and most importantly
create a better environment for students to learn and be
Ouriginal. T R
“ Cutting-edge
technology
such as machine
learning
algorithms allows
training our
software
to get smarter
every time a
text is analysed
“

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Enabling Personalized Coaching for Employees
at all Career Levels
Coaching is the second-fastest-growing industry on
the planet, only second to the IT industry. Digital
coaching has been a rising trend in coaching,
rapidly increasing year on year. In fact, a recent Hype Cycle
2020 Report by leading research and analyst, Gartner, stated
the business impact of the democratization of coaching and
mentoring as being “transformational for the development
and engagement of the workforce.” This is exactly what
CoachHub strives for, an executive coach for every
employee, regardless of location or time zone.
CoachHub is a leading global talent development platform
that enables organizations to create a personalized,
measurable and scalable coaching program for the entire
workforce, regardless of department and seniority level. By
doing so, organizations are able to reap a multitude of
benefits, including increased employee engagement, higher
levels of productivity, improved job performance and
increased retention.
CoachHub’s global pool of coaches consists of over 1000
certified business coaches in 42 countries across six
continents with coaching sessions available in over 30
languages.
Earlier this year, the company also launched its
CoachHub4Good initiative, whereby it offers free digital
coaching to aid organizations which have been particularly
affected by the pandemic.
How it all Started
Having experienced the power of coaching in their previous
roles at McKinsey and LinkedIn, brothers Matti and
Yannis Niebelschütz co-founded CoachHub in 2018. One
thing that was hindering their coaching experience,
however, was the logistics around their coaching sessions –
having to travel to a different city to meet their coach,
booking a room etc. As previous entrepreneurs, they
decided it was time to start a new venture together and
combat these issues with digital coaching.
CoachHub is the digital coaching provider, offering holistic
people development to forward-thinking companies on a
global scale. Licenses are sold to organizations, allowing
their employees in-app and web access to a global pool of
certified executive-level business coaches. The HR
dashboard then provides a company-level view of coachee
progress to CEOs and HR directors, giving measurable
development results and ROI.
With CoachHub, employees at all career levels can now
have access to executive level coaching, anytime,
anywhere. Since its launching in Berlin under two years
ago, CoachHub has expanded into European territories
consisting of the UK&I, France, Nordics, Benelux and
Southern Europe. The overall workforce has now exceeded
150 people.
Matti and Yannis are entrepreneurs at heart, having founded
several successful startups throughout their careers, with
CoachHub being their fastest growing one. In fact, it has
been listed as the fastest growing startup in Germany, with
a goal of hitting 200 people by the end of 2020. This is
thanks to them securing a total of $21m investment from
five different investors, accelerating their mission to
democratize coaching to employees at all career levels.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
The quality of its product is what really sets CoachHub
apart from the competition and has helped propel it
forward. At the core of its product lies its coaches. Its
global pool of an almighty 1000+ coaches, of 30 different
languages, across six different continents, is continuing to
grow. With established partnerships with world leading
18 November | 2020

coaching associations, including the International Coach
Federation (ICF), the applications to become part of
CoachHub are growing at a rapid rate.
Behind its product is its Coaching Lab, a think tank that
drives behavioral research and development in the coaching
space. It provides a repository of expert insights and tools
to support the development of coachees, such as how to
optimize their workplace performance and thrive on a
personal level. Its last round of funding was invested
heavily in its coaching lab, which includes some of
Europe’s leading professors, psychologists, coaches,
researchers and learning experts.
The fact that its product is something that positively
impacts and contributes to the world, is what keeps
CoachHub going. Digital coaching is an incredibly
powerful tool for many things, but in particular to help with
Our vision is a
personal coach
for every employee,
accompanying
them as a guide
to measurably
advance their
careers
November | 2020 19

20 November | 2020

THE 10 BEST
COMPANIES
ACROSS THE GLOBE 2020 T R
stress management, resilience and agility - all skills that are
critical in today’s climate.
Keeping at Pace
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) are hugely important for
CoachHub now. How D&I affects employee wellbeing has
become all too familiar today amongst HR professionals
and C-suites. The institute is currently developing a D&I
coaching framework to help organizations with its D&I
initiatives. Other trends, particularly in the coaching world
are largely around artificial intelligence (AI).
CoachHub already has its own artificial intelligence
matching tool for employees to the right coach, but it will
certainly continue to see AI disrupt the coaching world. Its
innovative product team and Coaching Lab, together,
ensure that the institute keeps up the pace with the trends
both from a technology perspective and a coaching
perspective.
CoachHub plans on reaching a total of 200 employees by
the end of 2020. Its ultimate goal is to become the leading
digital coaching provider across the globe. T R
November | 2020 21

Healthy Vibes
The Importance of
POSITIVE
TEACHER-STUDENT
RELATIONSHIP
On average, a student spends almost 2000 hours per
year in school. That is a significant amount of time
that should be utilized well in order to ignite a
student's lifetime love of learning. It is also a significant
part of a student’s life, not to be wasted on unhealthy
teacher-student interactions. Experts argue that a good
teacher-student relationship is critically important to the
direction a kid’s future takes.
Some of the ways through which a teacher can build
healthy relationship with each student in the classroom
include communicating positive expectations, being fair
when implementing rules and regulations, being caring,
providing all learners with reasonably fair assessment, and
developing classroom pride. Educators can also leverage
strong relationships with their students to make teaching
fun and effective.
Healthy relationship between teachers and students can
significantly boost a kid’s self-esteem, especially for the
kids who are not fortunate enough to have supportive
families. Here are four more benefits of establishing
positive student-teacher relationship:
1. Overcoming behavioral issues
Most behavioral problems in the classroom result from kids
feeling alienated from the community around them. It is
normal for a young kid to hate school, but it is not okay
when their dislike of school starts to affect their academic
record and spoils the classroom environment for other kids.
You can prevent this by relating at a personal level with
every kid and understanding why the problem kids behave
in the manner they do. Being friendly, calm, and
approachable will help you understand the socio-economic
background of every kid, so you will know how to
approach every problem kid without igniting the resistance
in him/her. Building a strong relationship with learners
helps the kids feel like they belong - like they are a part of a
bigger group and a bigger purpose.
2. Boosting academic success
Part of this is the precipitation of good behavior. When you
make a kid feel like at home and want to be a part of a
greater purpose than just being naughty, the kid is able to
repurpose his energy from being rebellious to working hard
in the classroom. That will more often than not translate to
academic success.
Having a strong bond with your students also helps you to
clearly communicate your expectations to and for each
student. You are able to motivate struggling students to
work hard and the bright students to outscore their current
score. In this context, you can motivate them to take
additional training classes such as assertiveness training
that can help them improve the overall interpersonal skills
and gain more self-respect. On their part, the students trust
in your ability to help them, so they listen to you more and
respect your orders without any resistance. They are also
very comfortable consulting you whenever they encounter a
hitch in their coursework. All these factors combined boosts
the students’ performance. If you are working remotely, that
means that you will be sending a lot of academic materials
online. Thus, make sure that the students understand the
technicalities of sending emails, sharing files, and
converting files into pdf, and the likes. Having a holistic
understanding of such technicalities will evade them being
discouraged, and actually focus on mastering the material,
and succeeding academically.
24 November | 2020

About the author
Tringa Bells is a physical
therapist student and loves
everything related to
exercising and outdoor
activities. She loves
spending time with her
family, her friends, loves
traveling and coding. Her
hobby is writing, and she
loves to express herself
through words. In her free
time, she loves to take care
of kids and works as a
nanny.
3. Enhancing students’ social maturation
The nature of rapport a kid has with the adults in his/her life
determines how well his social maturation process pans out.
A teacher is the non-parental authority figure the kid spends
most time with. If you create a positive environment where
they can grow their emotional and social intelligence, they
are able to mature well in time. Remember that these kids
trust and respect you when you are friendly with them, so
they will always feel privileged to have such a wonderful
adult in their lives. They will want to emulate you and grow
into as responsible and caring as you.
4. Improving students’ mental health
Healthy student-teacher relationships translate into reduced
stress and anxiety, especially for the students who come
from poor socioeconomic backgrounds and who experience
any disorder. One such problem would be children with
speech disorders, who because of their problem can be
marginalized from their peers, which in turn can cause
problems in their mental health. In such cases, teachers
should support them in their speech therapy and help them
get integrated into the class. Such kids might be living in
neighborhoods filled with hate and crime, meaning that you
could be their only source of protection they know besides
their parents. Kids who suffer from learning difficulties, on
the other hand, usually suffer from low self-esteem. Your
love and care will help them develop a sense of self-worth;
a sense of pride. That is good for their mental health.
Conclusion
It is not uncommon for teachers to have challenging
relationships with their students, especially when the kid is
rebellious and poorly behaved. However, a bad relationship
only exacerbates the problem. The kids continue being
rebellious, the teacher finds more reasons not to like the
kids, and the kids find more reasons to not like the teacher.
In the end, your career stagnates and your dreams of
changing lives through teaching are shattered. You must
start looking for ways to engage each one of your students
in a positive way.
November | 2020 25

The age of autodidacts
Technological
revolution in
education
26 November | 2020

Tech Talk
Ageneration of autodidacts educated by the
internet and leveraged by technology will
starve the industrial education system.
Welcome to the technological revolution in education.
These are exciting times in the landscape of education.
Where once the time-honoured tradition used to be
sitting in a classroom or a lecture-venue, the concept of
classrooms has now been thrown wide open in a way
that has never been seen before. Once again, man
ventures into the unknown with this revolution that the
education sector is experiencing right now, and we will
see the fruits of it in the coming years.
How is technology changing the way we learn?
Technology is transforming education in multifarious
ways. From helping students to learn more anytime
anywhere, empowering teachers all over the world to
develop innovative instructional aides and methods,
technology and digital learning are leading the way to
show the world how much more we can do.
• People now receive their instruction and data online
and can even sit in a remote location and enjoy classes
from a place totally unrelated to their subjects in a
virtual classroom environment
• Parents and guardians, especially of young children,
can keep a closer watch on what kind of education
their children are receiving.
• Props and learning aids are also changing – study
guides, e-books, white papers, audio books and other
useful resources are fairly new and well-received
methods of education.
• Instructional technology – instructional technology
is the branch of education concerned with scientific
study of instructional design and development. The
main purpose of instructional designers is to create
engaging, effective learning experiences. There are a
variety of models – ADDIE, Backward Design,
ASSURE, etc. which focus on creating engaging and
effective learning experiences for people.
• E-learning also makes students naturally adept with
digital technologies. Digital literacy and digitally
literate professionals are in demand like never before.
• Self-assisted learning – students do not necessarily
have to visit a campus in order to receive a lecture or
hand in an assignment. Also, students can interact
with each other in a virtual space and share material,
quizzes, files and so much more.
• Online tutors – real life tutors are now available
continually on call to assist with a problem, question
or challenge.
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• AI-driven applications in education are still in their
infancy, but this nascent market for AI in education is
expected to reach $6 billion by the year 2025. Artificial
Intelligence in education typically focuses on identifying
what a student does or does not know. This helps the AI to
subsequently develop a personalized curriculum for each
student.
As the world still reels from the devastating effects of the
Covid-19 outbreak, we can observe its impact in every
sector around the world. We can attribute many things to
this pandemic – from the massive death toll to enforced
lockdowns, from massive economic strife to supply
shortages in basic amenities. But we must not fail to
attribute one more thing to this global epidemic – it fasttracked
the technological transformation of education in
India and around the globe.
The outbreak of covid-19 initially had very detrimental
effects on the students’ life. In India, around 32 crore
learners stopped to move to schools/colleges and all
educational activities halted in India.
Soon this became the catalyst for the educational
institutions to grow and opt for platforms with technologies,
which have not been used before. The education sector has
been battling to survive the crises with a different approach
and digitising the challenges to wash away the threat of the
pandemic.
But this transformation is a double-edged sword. The long
list of advantages of technology in the educational realm
also come with another expansive list of drawbacks.
So, as we move into this new age in terms of education, let
us examine various positive and negative effects this may
cause in its wake:
Pro(s):
• Democratising educational opportunity – Students will
now have their pick of the lot to choose from in terms of
how they learn, what gadgets they use, whether they
prefer a class in the audio format or the text format or the
AV(audio-video) format.
• Easy process in delivering the material to students along
with ease of access to different resources without any
trouble
• Students also have the freedom to choose their preferred
courses and their preferred teachers. Connects students,
teachers, parents across different geographies.
• Gives students and teacher the premise to experiment and
innovate
• In India, with the new education policy (NEP) 2020 being
implemented, students in graduate studies also get the
opportunity to leave their field, if they so choose, and join
another area of interest. With digital availability of many
of the courses, students can use this opportunity well and
make an informed decision about their future.
• Flexibility of timing as courses and study material can be
consumed any time of the day giving learners the longawaited
right to set their timetable.
• This dynamic form of education with the help of
appropriate guidance can lead to dramatically deeper
student engagement and boosting creativity. Visual aids
and pros boosts participation.
Con(s):
• Children are naturally exhilarated creatures with little
means to modulate their emotions and control their
desires. Technology is distractive. The attention span of a
child and even an adult gets diminished with digital tools.
• This can also contribute to digital addiction, mental
fatigue and poor modulation of neurochemicals.
• Limited due to affordability and availability of tools and
technologies
• Being faced with technological tools can heavily affect
the natural circadian rhythms of children and adults. The
disruption of sleep-wake cycles come with their own host
of mental problems.
• Personal interaction between students and teachers or
peer interactions will inevitably reduce. This can lead to
poorly formed social skills
• Pervasiveness of technology is also an important issue to
consider
• The credibility of information available online is
questionable at times
• Inappropriate content, video games, especially violence
can impact the minds of young adults.
A futuristic school that aims at high academic excellence,
and a sound value system, is what is needed. Navigating in
the global world with technology and shaping students into
explorers, innovators, thinkers and citizens of the future is
what would count as a remarkable difference. But as we
move into this new system, we must keep a watchful eye to
the shape this transformation takes. T R
-Aditya Umale
28 November | 2020

Ushering in an Era of Digital Transformation in
Fin-Tech and Money Lending
EarlySalary is an innovative lending platform that aims
to change the way loans are taken in India. Being a
new age online brand, the company brings together
new credit scoring systems for superior customer profiling. In
an interview with The Knowledge Review, Akshay
Mehrotra, the Co-Founder and CEO of EarlySalary shares
his opinions about the company, the various services it offers,
various organizational policies, and its future plans.
1. Kindly tell us how your company is revolutionizing the
digital money lending and fin-tech industry in India?
EarlySalary is leading the digital salary advance and instant
loans space and has gone on to become India’s largest mobile
first consumer lending platform for salaried individuals.
Currently, disbursing over 80,000 loans a month worth Rs.125
Cr, the company has already disbursed 900,000 loans.
EarlySalary aims to achieve full stack credit product portfolio
to cater to all customer’s need. They are also focusing on
achieving customer engagement from the start of customer’s
credit life cycle & growing with their needs. The company also
focuses on gaining a highly scalable, tech-enabled automated
underwriting & risk management system. EarlySalary
successfully went on to become the preferred credit line which
grows with their customer to cater to his/her life’s every need
by providing:
- Instant loan with tenure starting form 1 month to 3 years
- Shopping loans on Amazon, Flipkart & Big Bazaar
- Present in across 40+ Big Bazaar stores through feet-on-street
personnel
- Salary card for universal payments
- Education fees payments in EMI -100+ tie-ups across the
country with education institutes
2. What are the employee benefit programs initiated by
your company and what steps are you taking towards
employee development of client organizations?
EarlySalary started with a team of around 8 people in 2015 and
has reached 250 employees today. The company works
towards creating a company culture that encourages a healthy
work-life balance while giving creative freedom to their
30 November | 2020

Interview with The Knowledge Review
workforce. Creating a strong, positive corporate culture helps
their employees feel and perform their best at work. The
success of an early stage company can be measured with their
ability to attract talent from all over the world to build a next
level organization. EarlySalary is one of those few companies
who have been successful in attracting the best in class talent.
Moreover, EarlySalary’s participation in corporate programs,
where they have now collaborated with around 350 corporates
encourages financial wellness at workplace and offers
salary-advances to their employees. Along with the
millennials, they also aim to benefit the blue-collared and
entry-level skilled workers working with the corporates.
3. Please tell us about yourself. As a leader, what steps are
you taking to spearhead the company towards development
and prominence?
I completed my Master’s Degree in Business Administration
from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune. Now I
am spearheading EarlySalary along with the Co-Founder
Ashish Goyal. Prior to this, I gathered 16 years of experience
with brands like Future Retail Ltd, PolicyBazaar.com, Big
Bazaar, and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd. My business
acumen and attention to detail has assisted me to achieve the
“Most Talented CMO of the Year” award in 2013 – 2014 in the
retail space, by CMO Asia.
In the last few years, I have led EarlySalary through various
phases where funding cycles were critical, and came out with
flying colors with marquee investors like EightRoads (Fidelity)
Ventures, Chirate (IDG) Ventures & DHFL backing large
funding rounds. Today EarlySalary has raised not only $23
Million in equity but also raised more than $50 Million in debt
to build and over Rs.1500Cr have been disbursed.
Growth cannot happen without building a strong team and
hence at EarlySalary we have built a team of nearly 250 people
comprising of data scientists, core technology developers, risk
& underwriting, collections, product and marketing units
which has helped them grow in a highly automated manner.
Large customer acceptance is critical to any early stage
business and today EarlySalary has over 9 Million app
downloads, disbursed over 900,000 loans and tied-up with over
400+ large corporates along with 100+ education institutes to
help kick start hyper growth.
4. What are the various loan facilities offered by your
company, and what is the eligibility criteria for availing the
same?
The various loans are:
Shopping Loans–Instant credit facility of EarlySalary made it
easier to shop on EMIs and get vouchers for both Amazon and
Flipkart. Whether its electronic appliances or household items
- everything is accessible and affordable with our buy now pay
later options.
Travel Loans–EarlySalary doesn’t limit your travel plans with
it’s no cost EMIs and partnerships with India’s leading travel
agencies - Yatra and MakeMyTrip.
Education Loans–EarlySalary shares the same sentiment you
do for education - which is why we’re making it easier than
ever to cover the cost of fees. Our program called FeEs, is
designed to take the financial burden off your shoulders and
allow you to provide the quality education you need,
uninhibited, and uninterrupted.
Eligibility –
1. Should be an Indian Resident
2. Should be a working professional/salaried person
3. Salary should be above Rs 18,000
5. In addition to instant cash loan, what additional benefits
does your company provide?
EarlySalary is a customer focused organization and our
mission is to provide financial assistance to the underserved
classes. Consumer lending is fueled by an immense rise in the
young working population. Our ability to lend to young first
time customers gives us a unique opportunity to create a strong
niche and cater to a large underserved market potential. We
believe that advisory efforts are required to help the young
adults to take control of their finances, and make smart
monetary decisions to ensure a prosperous and stable future.
With its various product features like free monthly credit score
report and providing knowledge through campaigns and
on-ground activities, we try to encourage to understand their
financial health and setting them on the right path towards
making better financial decisions. EarlySalary believes such
initiatives will go a long way to help people understand the
intricacies of managing their credit well, and also pay a useful
role in influencing their financial wellness.
6. Please tell us how your company is promoting a healthy
work-life balance and positive work culture.
EarlySalary employees can explore various opportunities
where they can upskill themselves through various learning
platforms and share their best practices at work. Thus creating
a strong, positive corporate culture that helps the employees
feel and perform their best at work. EarlySalary as an
organization is committed to work towards diversity and
inclusivity and encourages its employees to contribute towards
it in various forms.
7. Kindly enlighten us about the future plans of your
company.
Our TG of young working professionals is the fastest growing
segment in the country and hence we would like to build
EarlySalary as a market leader in this category. And in next 3
years, we aim to build a billion dollar balance sheet. T R
November | 2020 31