Catalyzing quality and
affordable ed-tech for
Bharat at scale

ACT For Education

The Challenge

At a time when India’s school education system was already struggling to address a massive learning divide, 600+ days of school closures during the COVID pandemic only aggravated the crisis.

80%

Children aged 14-18 years have reported lower levels of learning

74%

Youth aged 18-23 years don’t have access to higher education and skilling

With rising smartphone penetration and 1 Bn+ Indians estimated to be online by 2030, contextualized ed-tech solutions can unlock massive potential for Bharat. On one hand, adaptive and AI-enabled ed-tech is the need of the hour to help address learning losses resulting from school closures. On the other hand, it can also overcome the constraints and lack of effectiveness of under-resourced classrooms, to not only bridge the learning divide but also accelerate both learning and skilling amongst children and employment-ready youth from low-income backgrounds.

Our Thesis

Our early insights suggest that Bharat needs more ed-tech solutions that are low-cost, mobile-friendly, integrated with Whatsapp, have vernacular educational content and are highly personalized to aid learning for under-served children and youth.

ACT For Education aims to enable the bottom three quartiles of India’s population to learn effectively by harnessing the power of affordable, accessible and high-quality ed-tech interventions. The 100 Cr fund will seed the capabilities of education-centric as well as skilling-focused organizations and accelerate their impact by helping them forge strategic partnerships and opening up distribution networks.

Provide Catalytic Funding

ACT

Fuel the next-gen of ed-tech social entrepreneurs through incubators & challenge grants and accelerate scale by collaborating with other ecosystem stakeholders.

Build Capacity

ACT

Leverage the ACT collective to support our portfolio organizations across key need areas like product & technology, network access, marketing, organizational development etc.

Generate Insights

ACT

Work closely with the portfolio and external researchers to create proof-points for ed-tech on effectiveness and impact on learning outcomes.

Our Portfolio

ACT

ConveGenius

A free Whatsapp chatbot that focuses on teaching through a remedial assessment approach.

ACT

CuriousJr

A free mobile platform for students from low-income backgrounds to learn coding in vernacular languages.

ACT

English Quest

An affordable app that combines verbal and non-verbal cueing techniques to help under-served students improve their spoken English.

ACT

Josh Skills

An affordable gamified spoken English course for under-served youth that enables peer to peer learning.

ACT

Kutuki

A self-learning and storytelling-led solution for pre-school children that helps build foundational literacy & numeracy.

ACT

Rocket Learning

A free AI-enabled Whatsapp solution that enables low-income parents and Anganwadi workers to focus on early childhood education.

ACT

Top Parent

A free app designed to empower low-income parents with children between 3-8 years to support their child’s learning.

ACT

Vidyakul

An affordable app that offers both live & recorded classes in vernacular languages, along with lecture notes and quizzes, for state board students.

ACT

VOPA

A free app that enables grade 1 to 10 students in rural India learn at home using vernacular content.

ACT

YuWaah NXT

Led by Yuwaah & UNICEF, a Whatsapp chatbot that aims to develop life skills among children between 14-18 years.

ACT

Karya

An innovative micro-tasking app that enables underserved communities to complete simplified AI/ML data tasks and generate supplementary income while providing them with upskilling opportunities and career guidance

What We’re Looking For

If you’re a social entrepreneur building an innovative ed-tech solution for Bharat, we want to hear from YOU!

Here is a quick checklist that’ll help you understand what we’re looking for and whether your product / solution would be eligible to be evaluated for a grant:

  • Tech First
    Should leverage technology to expand reach, enable affordability and improve the user experience.

  • Made For Bharat
    Should be specifically designed to cater to the needs of children and young adults from low-income families.

  • Evidence Of Learning Impact
    Must have some demonstrated evidence of positively influencing learning outcomes.

  • Potential For Scale
    The model should have high potential for scale to millions of users over the next 3 to 5 years.

  • Roadmap To Sustainability
    Must have a clear roadmap to grow sustainably (either by generating revenue or fundraising effectively) beyond ACT’s support.

ACT Capital Foundation For Social Impact is a not-for-profit company incorporated and registered under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013. All donations made to ACT Capital Foundation are eligible for income tax deduction under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act.

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